The Warning
by Carkins Bug
Summary: The thoughts of a often harassed and troubled first officer as all things slide inevitably towards doom. Chakotay POV set in Season 7, A/U rated M for bad language and adult themes. J/C.
1. Chapter 1

Author's notes:

Tis I, back once more from the dusty realms. I apologise once again for the gap between posting stories and getting everything back online that was lost, not only do I take a spectacularly long-time agonising over details and half-hearted attempts at research, I spend a lot of my personal time incredibly unwell. This means that weeks can pass between me writing and it slows down my attempts to continue writing as a distraction from the often painful and frustrating real world.

I wanted to do another Chakotay POV story as the last was well received, as before I've kept him as sarcastic and darkly dry as I found his character and this is still my attempt to present a Chakotay that they didn't spend enough time exploring, same can be said for a lot of the characters. Once more I've used the chaotic and often non-sequitur thought process heavily in the writing, so it flows in many directions and I hope the path is not too hard to follow.

The story originally came from a conversation I had about the quick nature of resolution in some plot points of television shows that were simply possibly because it isn't real and how they can go from being falling apart at the seams to all neatly resolved in a matter of seconds. If only life was really as forgiving…

It's a bit of a slow starter so I appreciate anyone powering through this one and as always, I encourage and welcome feedback, I will respond, but as with writing fanfic, it can be a while between me checking in due to personal life but I will get back to you! Thank you to everyone who took the time to read my previous and hopefully those that attempt this mess of a story!

Set in the final season, Neelix is still aboard, Torres is pregnant, none of the C/7 has taken place, obviously A/U with references to episodes "Waking Moments", "Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy", "The Q and the Grey", "Resolutions" and a ton of others really, I can't be bothered to type them all out… oooh and also Janeway's backstory in the Jeri Taylor novel "Mosaic". Spoilers throughout for the whole series but why you'd be reading this rather than finishing watching the series is beyond me.

Contains adult themes, some profane and wonderful language, terrible plot points, horrendous grammar and terrible formatting. There are also so heavy descriptions of depression so I suppose a trigger warning in places could be necessary, let me know if you feel one is needed.

Peace and love to you all.

* * *

Disclaimer: Not mine, never were, never will be. Please don't sue me because I'm seriously poor to the point I'd have to pay you in jammy dodgers and good intentions. Go watch the show and enjoy it and be grateful to the powers that be that are indeed Voyager's keepers.

* * *

 _ **The Warning**_

The thing about life and death situations is that there is usually very little warning given to the impending doom. One day you're just going about your daily business, the mundanity that exists between the adrenaline fuelled drama that is our lives here in this floating metal husk, when suddenly without any reasonable warning beyond a red alert if you're lucky, the proverbial rug is pulled from under your feet, sending all unfortunate enough to be stood on it at the time, tumbling unwillingly to the floor.

Such is life apparently, that seems to be the general consensus around these parts, the words usually uttered depressingly more than once a day by some unfortunate soul stuck in this shitty situation along with the rest of us. We've all experienced enough life and death out here in the void of space that we've become somewhat numb to impending doom, it's the shadows of our every step every day here in the Delta Quadrant, not always obvious but there, but so easy to ignore or forget or not notice.

Without life there is no death and vice versa, how can you experience one without the other? You can't, they both are there to appreciate the opposite. Whether to take an important lesson in the fleeting nature of time, of the fragile nature of existence, to the all-out head fuck of what the meaning of it all is, life and death are there to remind us of the fact we're here and we've got no fucking idea why.

* * *

I swear the universe hates me.

Somehow, no matter what I do, I seem to be some sort of slow moving target for all the weird and insane shit the universe has to offer. Any time we run into something strange on this gentle meander back home, it's destined to somehow fuck up my day.

Doesn't matter what I do, it happens, to me, frequently.

And today is no exception. I spent over half of my day in sickbay with the Doctor after some sort of prehensile vine decided to re-enact Jack and the Beanstalk starring me, after being hung upside down by my ankles by what can only be described as the plant equivalent of an octopus for the better part of an hour, during which I was barely conscious due to not only the fact that all my blood was then residing in my head, but because of how many times Kathryn attempted to free me by bashing the thing with a rifle butt and missing, repeatedly. She packs one hell of a wallop does that woman.

All we had to do was collect a few samples, we didn't even really have to do that, it was only because Kathryn was starting to exhibit signs of cabin fever and the convenient appearance of an M-Class planet offered a brief respite from the permanent night of our journey. A few plants samples, a bit of alien sun, some fresh alien air and all was supposed to be well, but there never is the case where we're concerned.

Five minutes we lasted before a bush all but rugby tackled me to the ground, wrapped thick vines around my ankles and hoisted me skywards. Had Kathryn mounted a rescue attempt slightly quicker than she did, rather than spending 15 minutes cackling, I probably would have been free long before she had a chance to give me a concussion while using me as a piñata in her effort to rescue me.

Just to top it off, there was some sort of thorn on the vine stems that I'm apparently allergic too, as my ankles looked like they belonged to an elephant and required five rounds of antihistamine hypos before going down.

Have made a mental note to not help Kathryn next time she's stuck, I once rescued her from a prehensile plant, sure cutting off her hair was a bit of an extreme rescue method but it worked and the bangs suited her. Maybe that was her ice-cold revenge after all this time, to leave me dangling like some sort of shit modern art installation while she got her chuckles on.

Thankfully I'm now back in the safety of my quarters and my ears couldn't be happier, the Doctor was practising some new aria that quite frankly sounded like a banshee being strangled by a pissed off cat. Six hours is six hours too many in the Doctors company on days like this. On the upside, I've been given tomorrow off duty just to be sure I'm all good and I intend to take full advantage of the situation, starting with a long lie in, swiftly followed by a day full of nothing. I'm going to do as little as humanly possible and thoroughly enjoy it.

Part of me thinks I should be productive with my time, the rest of me can't be bothered with that shit and believes I have earned the right to a lazy day. We probably all have really by this point, after over six years of this madness it's a miracle no one's nursing a serious breakdown really. There's certainly been times the crew and their Captain have come close but we all seem to continue to pull ourselves up and fight once more even though our brain abandoned ship long ago for calmer shores.

There is something so relaxing about knowing all I must do tomorrow is breathe, the rest I'll make up as I go along. To not have rules and regulations to worry about, even just for one day, it was almost worth the concussion. Almost. I have one of those burrowing headaches that makes your entire face feel like pressurised cooker, I don't know how Kathryn handles the headaches and migraines she puts up with, I feel like my eyes are bulging and my skull is the only thing stopping my brain from exploding out of my skull like a volcano.

Time to disable the programmed wakeup call from the computer and bed, fingers crossed I wake up in the morning.

* * *

Even since I began to connect to the realm of spirits, my dreams have been anything but forgetful.

I can still recall now dreams I had as a child and can easily recall the fear and anxiety that my night visions caused.

Sometimes the dreams were surreal and ridiculous as dreams can be, sometimes a dream could hang on for months, returning to my sleeping form over and over.

These dreams are the ones that I usually find are for a specific reason, something I was missing that my subconscious was trying to alert me to, a sign of warning or of opportunity, of solving puzzles my waking mind was too fried to understand. Some have been all out incredibly eerie in their ability to show me a path I couldn't see myself. Dreams for my people, for me, are another spirit communication and to ignore them would not be wise, it took a lot of time and a lot of faith to understand that fully.

This night, my tired and battered brain is residing somewhere I am unsure of.

There is tree, tall and thick with age, it's bark weathered and dark. Around it's tangled roots is the mulch of its life, sodden and mossy, slowly absorbing into the base of the tree. The tree is a remarkable green colour, vibrant and shouting life from the veins of each leaf, standing sturdy and foreboding against a clear blue empty sky.

As I stand and consider the tree, I see high in the branches a bird's nest swaying gently in the light breeze. A small red bird sits on the rim of the nest, a worm wriggling in its beak as it prepares to end its life to fuel another. The bird seems to notice me the very second I notice it, small beady eyes lock onto mine and its feathers ruffle somewhat.

Unsure if I've disturbed this bird and its nest of no doubt small offspring (I cannot see or hear them but what else are nests ultimately for than to support life) waiting for the worm patiently to become their next meal. A small amount of guilt flushes through me as I watch the small bird nervously twitching along the branch to get a closer look at me, as though it's sizing me up from a distance and ready to take flight if it turns out I'm an asshole.

The bird having made its judgement then slowly and gently takes flight from its branch and glides lightly down towards me. It beats its wings and flaps as it seems to suspend itself in the air before me, the red of its feathers flashing in swift movements.

I can feel my hand reaching out towards the bird despite not making a decision to do so and before I can make contact, the bird's beak opens and from where I would expect to hear the warble of a birdsong, instead produces a guttural and human scream. The likes of which I have never heard before in my life. As though all the horrors of the worlds were contained in it's very soul.

The gentle breeze has now picked up into a forceful gust, the leaves of the tree scattering and the nest begins to sway in its branch.

I can smell smoke and within moments it begins to roll towards me within each gust of wind, thick and overwhelming, smothering and reaching.

The bird still screaming extends its wings as though reaching for the heavens and the skies begin to redden and scorch.

And then a buzzer begins to flare loudly.

"Doctor to Chakotay."

As the waking world demands my presence, the dream begins to dissolve and dissipate like a passing rain cloud.

"Doctor to Chakotay, please respond."

With a groan and more than a little tired frustration, I slap my comm badge sitting on the nightstand.

"What is it Doctor?"

"I just wanted to check you were conscious."

Lovely.

"I wasn't and would quite like to go back to not being conscious."

"I'm sorry Commander, it's standard procedure following head injuries, even my skilled medical knowledge can't prevent the odd coma."

It's good to know his ego is intact at all hours.

"Goodnight Doctor."

"Please make sure you contact me if you start experiencing any visual disturbance, nausea or dizziness."

"What if I've fallen into a coma?"

"Then rest assured someone will find you… eventually."

"Thanks… I think... Chakotay out."

Sleep does not return easily to me.

When it finally does, dreams of smoke and screams fill my head.


	2. The Warning Chapter 2

Author's notes: A looooooooong chapter mainly because of the messaging section, inspired by an on-going e-mail correspondence with a family member that has an ongoing subject line of successive "RE" because everyone knows the reply button is much easier than starting a new email every time… right?... Just me?... Dang….  
Also the chapter is incredibly long because I still haven't learnt my lesson about formatting… I suck, I know.

Disclaimer: Not mine, never were, never will be. Please don't sue me because I'm seriously poor to the point I'd have to pay you in jammy dodgers and good intentions. Go watch the show and enjoy it and be grateful to the powers that be that are indeed Voyager's keepers.

* * *

"Did you hear about Seven and Ensign Hughes?" A small but noticeable smug smile sits on B'Elanna's face as she talks. She must be in possession of something she considers worthy gossip

I shake my head, not just because I don't know but because I couldn't give less of a shit if I tried. The comings and goings of our resident Borg is of little interest to me.

B'Elanna's eyes light up as she realises she has the scoop and begins to quietly but animatedly spill the beans to a half-interested Paris, a slightly over interested Neelix and a very uninterested me.

Out of habit I found myself heading to mess hall for breakfast despite the intention to have a lie in followed by a crappily replicated pancake in my pants but routines have taken over my life here and without realising it, I was up unforgivably early and on the way here before I had the sense to realise it was unnecessary.

Most mornings start here at the table, the faces rotate with whoever's on duty but the mood is always the same, a sleepy reluctance to be taking part in the day.  
For some reason lately, I'm guessing hormones have a large part to play in it but B'Elanna has become the most gossipy of fishwives, nothing seems to escape her sensors.

Most of it all it seems though any excuse to have a slight upper hand on Seven is better than nothing for B'Elanna and although by now I would have thought their petty rivalry would have run its course, pregnancy has reinvigorated B'Elanna with a fierce spirit of late and as she sits now and explains whatever it is she's talking about, I hadn't been paying one bit of attention, I can't help but feel a bit sorry for Seven.

She will always be the talking point, whether here or whether we do get time in home before she rusts away to nothing, she will be the talking point in every room that she's in or not in.  
I don't think anyone's quite grasped just how big of an impact Seven will have, not only in terms of her no nonsense and blunt personality, but in terms of the impact Kathryn's gesture of saving her from the Hive will have on all things.

The generosity she has shown Seven in her knowledge, time and ultimately patience, she has sent out a tsunami wave of ripples, in ways that will echo beyond all of our living days. She tamed a Borg to some extent, it was the equivalent to saddling up a T-Rex for a quick jog around the park, she did something unthinkable, she placed a faith in a soul she never knew existed because she has faith there is always something more, something worthy of survival.

Kathryn will become the woman who took the Borg and turned them from a cybernetic nightmare of a monster into a friend. She has one upped the shit out of Picard quite frankly.

She's made it a possibility that our enemies can become our allies, more so our friend if we have the time and resources to disconnect them from the comfort of their perfect hive mind and introduce them to the chaos of the rest of our lives. The enemy is now saveable to some extent and Kathryn has turned the worlds on their heads once more with one act of kindness

The cause and effect of who she is and what she does, is working in a way in the universe that defies explanation, the butterfly of her miniscule decisions ripple out into this existence to an effect few others could ever accomplish in the same way. Kathryn has turned the collective into a technology we can use to our advantage and a knowledge we can use to forge new paths. Starfleet will lose their minds, Kathryn will become a hero, the world will change in what could be small or huge ways, but it will change because of Kathryn Janeway,

And the most I accomplished this week was to fall out of a bush.

"…And with that, the assimilation tubules shot out, Hughes grabs his pants and starts to run, not looking where he was going he ran straight into a wall, knocked himself out cold and woke up in Seven's arms being carried to sickbay!" B'Elanna starts to laugh, so much so a small tear begins to form at the corner of her eye. Whatever story I just zoned out on must have been a doozy because Tom's laughing into his omelette and Neelix looks like he's about to throw up.

"I told him he was punching above his weight." Says Tom, shaking his head with a smirk.

"I think you'll find Hughes is going to be practising celibacy for some time from now on." Smiles B'Elanna, she's absolutely loving this and I'm slightly regretful that I zoned out.

"I'm starting to wonder just what it is that the Doc is teaching her with these lessons of his." Tom spears a piece of omelette into his mouth as he speaks, I can honestly say I'm starting to wonder too because although there has been a remarkable improvement in Seven's personality, she is still what is referred to as a bitch where I come from.

I know it's harsh and she's basically still that kid that was assimilated and never had the chance to grow and learn, she's still as lost as we all were in our childhood. Because of this, she's functioning in the only way she knows how, as efficiently and unemotional as possible.

For like the Doctor in his own quest for humanity who has yet to learn himself of humility and humbleness, Seven has attempted to assimilate humanity as though it was species to be consumed into her vast library of knowledge of statistics and data as if data alone could show her what it was to be alive. In doing so she completely missed the point of humanity, error ridden and emotional as it is, she has instead taken humanity's worst traits and pinned them on like a badge of honour to complete her armour against this foreign and strange notion that is life.

It seems odd to me that the one person who has taken it upon themselves to teach Seven about the social and meaningful aspects of this life is the one person who themselves isn't real or has any real idea. But maybe that's why only the Doctor can be the one to guide Seven in such a way, he knows what it is to want humanity.

Sadly, this seems to be backfiring somewhat spectacularly in the Doctor's face though, because it's escaped no one on board just how much he feels for our resident Borg. He's about as subtle as a whale in a fish bowl, a fish bowl into which the entire ship is peering.  
As my mother would say "It will all end in tears." And I firmly believe it.

"Didn't the Doctor ask you to assist in Seven's lessons Chakotay?" Torres looks at me eyes gleaming with mischief as she points the question towards me with a jab of her fork in the air.

"I politely declined, I didn't think I was up to the job." I really didn't, how the hell was I to teach Seven about life when I haven't got a freaking clue myself. I take a sip of water as Torres snorts hard into her hand.

"That's the understatement of the year, are you sure she didn't need a few lessons in crashing shuttles or striking out with women from every species?" she laughs.

"Gee thanks B'Elanna, you sure know how to make a man feel good about himself." She has a point though, damnit.

"Seven needs someone like Worf." Muses B'Elanna.

"Dear Gods B, think of the children! They'd be like armoured trolls." Tom laughs as he speaks and is rewarded with a quick jab in the ribs.

"I take it today was the day you were finally ready to part with your genitalia..." The look Torres levels at Paris is lethal, not the smartest thing he's ever said considering he's expecting a child with a half-Klingon.

"Simmer down, it was a joke, a bad one but a joke none the less. I'm sure their children will be adorable." The look on his face as he speaks is less than convincing, it's more hopeful of not receiving an elbow in the ribs.

"It's a shame Mr Suder is no longer with us, I always thought he and Seven would have made a perfect couple." Everyone turns to look at Neelix open mouthed. It's the first thing he's said since sitting down with us, uninvited I might add, either he has one of the darkest sense of humours I've ever come across and severely underestimated until now or he's being genuine and I never want him to play matchmaker with anyone. Ever.

"I'll give you a ten out of ten for originality Neelix." Tom nods at him and forks the last of his omelette into his mouth.

Torres, looking somewhat perturbed by Neelix, gently shoves her tray away from her across the table.

"Well as much as I would love to stay and chat, I've got a warp core diagnostic due and honestly I'm scared where this conversation is going." She rises and looks at Tom "Should you need me or my troll of a child, I'll be in Engineering." Slowly she waddles away heavy with child and heavy with misplaced anger before Paris can even begin to think of a response, instead he shrugs, pulls her tray closer to his and begins shovelling the remains of her breakfast into his mouth.

"On that note, I'm going excuse myself, I have a day of nothing planned and I'm going to start by going someplace that isn't here, no offence Neelix." I rise myself and nod a goodbye to a smiling Neelix and a thoroughly engrossed with his food Tom.

Next time I have the opportunity to avoid this sort of conversation, I'm going to take it.

* * *

By the time I'm back to my quarters, I realise I have no idea what I'm actually going to do today.

I could be boring and finish up some reports I've been avoiding, or I could continue to procrastinate and find some other form of entertainment that's more… entertaining.

Now where exactly I find that on a small science vessel in to middle of the Delta Quadrant, I don't know, what I do know is that I cannot be bothered with the holodeck, which is more than likely already booked up solid until the end of the millennia, virtual reality leaves me somewhat disappointed and hollow.

It serves a purpose most of the time, but it's still hard for me to accept it as any form of comfort or replacement for real life. It's all just lines of code and photons, forcefields and programming, it just leaves me feeling somewhat cold.

I suppose it has a lot to do with why I haven't been able to really connect with Seven on the same level Kathryn has. In my head, it's hard to see past the technology to some kind of… soul. I know Seven is human in there, somewhere, but I've dealt with enough wolves in sheep's clothing to understand that I am not the best judge of character, in fact I'm probably the worst judge of character that has ever been. The only right decision I ever made when it came down to it, was to trust Kathryn, a decision I will never regret.

But to spend my time playing make believe is something I struggle with fully, I can enjoy myself but I can never really get into in the way some others do. Not in the same way Kathryn… well…. Whatever catnapping in the sun with a holographic Irishman is…

Not that I'm bitter…

Moving on swiftly… there's something unsatisfying about virtual reality in its forms, as much fun as it can, you'll still technically plugged into a power source and nothing can really replace the reality of life.

I can appreciate its uses, especially from a teaching or training side, but then there's the ever-present problem that confined spaces, hormones and human nature bring to anything capable of satisfying a momentary urge. The temptation to use the holodeck as a personal cat house can be overwhelming to some, far too many times I've seen officers fall victim to the addiction that can befall extended loneliness, whether it's alcohol, stimulants or whacking it in the holodeck with a photonic slut, it can be too compelling in its siren song of relief and be the downfall to many a level-headed soul.

For as useful it is in its many forms, there is something deeply shameful and guilt ridden about the scene before you that will dissolve away before your eyes to leave you standing, trousers around your ankles with a sticky puddle on the deck.

I want to be able to feel the warmth of skin and the erratic beating of Kathr-... of whoever's heart… you just don't get that with what is essentially a forcefield of energy. You just get a feeling of hollow sadness. As though things have become so desperate in your life, you have to program company, it just makes me feel so sad and empty.

But then again so does a lot of things in real life, especially of late. I've never been more aware of how quickly time passes and how much time has already passed and that I've never felt more alone than I do right now, especially when I realise that I've done nothing but sit on my couch in the dark and think for the last twenty minutes.

I need to find a new hobby.

A new distraction to life.

Something to keep me going, Gods know I need the encouragement at this point, I'm about ready to retreat in my shell and never peek out my head again.

Before I know it, whether from collective exhaustion or the head injury from Kathryn, I've nodded off on the couch and by the time I wake, sore with cramped limbs and aches of falling asleep somewhere I really should know better than to do so, most of the day has passed me by once more and the crushing realisation that this is all life has to afford me now, fills me with a dread I cannot speak off, but will brood for days over.

My dreams once again stray to the tree and the birds, the flames and the screams. When I wake, damp with sweat and tears over what I'm not sure, a darkness shadows me and refuses to leave.

* * *

By the following day, I'm back into the grind of the normal routine of life aboard Voyager, serving my purpose and indulging the continued routine of being here, somewhere I don't know. A vague headache still lurks but at least it's bearable.

The bridge is heavy with boredom. The type of boredom that can get you into trouble.

So overwhelming in its mundanity, it's impossible to not want it to end and the twitch of the need to do anything to lighten the mood is evident in both Paris and Kathryn with an alarming obviousness.

Paris has been, rather successfully, attempting to prank Tuvok by way of streaming media to his main work screen and locking him out of it. So far Tuvok has endured a video of a cat playing a keyboard, rather wonderfully I might add, a fifteen-minute recording of a Talaxian choir, ten minutes of Tuvan Throat singing (Which he seemed to actually enjoy) and 3 performances of a song by a very keen fellow who was never gonna give him up or let him down apparently.

Kathryn eventually shouted, "Mr Paris, I'm about to make you give up every ration and holodeck privilege for the rest of the journey if you don't pack it in." Which resulted in Paris sulking rather spectacularly, for good reason as I found out, as it was in fact Kathryn who had started the whole thing off with the cat video and had encouraged Tom via his personal padd message service to join her in terrorising Tuvok.

It's not often Kathryn's this playful and I can't remove the smile on my face the entire day when it does happen. Lately it doesn't happen at all, it's become such a rare event that it's almost cause for celebration. Kathryn lost a part of herself out here, something she is struggling to find again and in doing so, the spark that once was bright and keen is now dulled and barely visible, apart from the occasional glint that seems to escape her when her defences are low.

For a while now, there has been little to see or do. The last time we entered a region of space that was so unremarkable, Kathryn lost all of herself to a dark pit she would let no one enter or herself escape from. After all that has happened since, it's surprising she hasn't fallen apart once more and the worry that she will is always present because I never saw it coming. The problem is, you never do see it coming, you're only aware over it once it has barrelled through and levelled your ass to a point you can't pick yourself up from.

Kathryn has faced so much in her time in existence, more than most will experience in a lifetime but she has always tenaciously dragged herself up by the boots and kept going, sometimes with a gentle prod in the right direction, but she does always bounce back and is always so unfazed by even the worst of events that when she does fall apart a little, it shocks the system to know it's possible she can fall.

Today at least there has been minor signs of life on the sensors, a few ships, most likely freighters that are a day or so away from us. But still not enough to keep us occupied beyond boredom, however thankful for the break from the universe trying to kill us, I'd be more thankful for something to happen that would give us a break from this.

My padd emits a dull bleep and I pull it from my jacket pocket.

 **To: Chakotay, Cmdr.**

 **From: Janeway, K Capt.**

 **Subject: Morale**

 **It's low… Any ideas?**

None that I can probably share without either being slapped round the head or thrown into the brig for the remainder of the journey.

 **To: Janeway, K Capt.**

 **From: Chakotay, Cmdr.**

 **Subject: Re Morale**

 **The first Bridge Dance Recital?**

Now that would be interesting, I can just imagine Tuvok stoically carrying on his work while Kathryn dances the Dying Swan around his console.

 **To: Chakotay, Cmdr.**

 **From: Janeway, K Capt.**

 **Subject: Re Re Morale**

 **You or me?**

Proof she has never seen me dance, because it goes beyond left footed and clumsy to a whole other level where it looks like I'm being electrocuted in a pair of uneven clogs.

 **To: Janeway, K Capt.**

 **From: Chakotay, Cmdr.**

 **Subject: Re Re Re Morale**

 **You. My legs can't pull off a tutu anymore, makes my bum look big.**

I steal a glance in her direction and she has a wry smile on her face, she doesn't look up to me, instead her fingers dance over her padd once more and then she sits back with a contented sigh.

 **To: Chakotay, Cmdr.**

 **From: Janeway, K Capt.**

 **Subject: Re Re Re Re Morale**

 **No comment. At least I have now solved the mystery of why the elastic went on my last dancing skirt.**

Cheeky mare, if she wants to play dirty…

 **To: Janeway, K Capt.**

 **From: Chakotay, Cmdr.**

 **Subject: Re Re Re Re Re Morale**

 **I think you'll find that was more of a crepe related issue than my big behind, don't think I've forgotten about the rations you still owe me for your pancake problem.**

A few months ago, Kathryn went through what seemed like an unending phase of eating Crepes like they were going out of style, asparagus and cheese ones for lunch, salmon and dill for dinner and all manner of concoctions for pudding. There was chocolate, fruit, ice cream, yogurt, syrup, honey, sugar and not to mention the time I swear I saw her just wrap a whole banana in a crepe, pour half a litre of chocolate over it, dip it in peanut butter and practically unhinge her jaw in order to accommodate the sizeable mouthful and was so engrossed in her food I didn't hear a peep out of her for over half an hour while she crooned and yummy noised her way through what looked like a croissant on steroids.

 **To: Chakotay, Cmdr.**

 **From: Janeway, K Capt.**

 **Subject: Re Re Re Re Re Re Morale**

 **Are you now saying my bum is big? (Gentle reminder of who has the airlock launch keys...)**

Tread carefully old man.

 **To: Janeway, K Capt.**

 **From: Chakotay, Cmdr.**

 **Subject: Re Re Re Re Re Re Re Morale**

 **Yes.**

Well… Fuck. Fingers are working faster than my brain, not for the first time I might add.

With that she laughs out loud, clapping a hand over her mouth when she realises just how loud. It sounded like a hyena being choked. The laughter elicits a raised eyebrow from Tuvok and a confused look from over Tom's shoulder. Kathryn clears her throat and attempts to bury a crooked smile and muffled laughter from deep within her tiny frame.

She knows I'm teasing her and I wouldn't dare say something like that to just any woman. Kathryn shares my warped sense of humour and it didn't seem to take any time at all for us to form a friendship that allowed such teasing. She is also well aware of the amount of time both the Doctor and I spend encouraging and reminding her to eat. She has a tendency to not just only mentally punish herself, but physically too.

There are all the nights she chooses not to sleep and instead roams the ship like a quiet ghost looking for jobs to keep her busy, whether replacing a gel pack or realigning the phase banks, Kathryn will do it in order to avoid sleep, something that brings her uncontrollable anguish frequently. She has often spoke of the nightmares and twisted dreams that unsettle and disorientate her, especially when she is at her most stressed. Mostly of her father and of her fiancé, reliving that most destroying of all her memories over and over again, always with the same outcome as the reality, forced to watch helplessly as they die. I would avoid sleep too.

Along with the sleep deprivation is her habit to not eat, with the excuse of "I was too busy" or "I forgot" or "I wasn't hungry" that inevitably went with it. Then she becomes a wisp of a skeleton, patrolling the ship as some form of anguished, doom ridden ghoul. As though she is trying to emulate those we lost on this journey that she feels she failed even though she didn't, letting herself waste away to bone and stretched skin just as the bodies of the fallen.

Kathryn's guilt is her biggest monster and the shape of what she has become. So lost and twisted by events that she can no longer live. In depriving herself of anything resembling a private life aboard this ship away from being the Captain, she is depriving herself of the life she feels she doesn't deserve.

Kathryn is adamant she doesn't need a distraction from her duty, that even the slightest show of letting her guard down could in some way eventually result in her crew suffering. In her pledge to protect her crew as Captain and her enthusiasm to go down with the ship Kathryn has let herself wither and shrink forgotten while the Captain has crept into every crevice and wrapped itself around any happiness she could have, suffocating and smothering it all with every decision and action she takes in her role.

To see Kathryn now sitting by my side, a large and unmistakable smile on her face, eyes twinkling with mischief and life, is indescribable. The hair has risen on my forearms and a pleasant chill gently shudders through my spine. There's something about this woman's face that is electric when she smiles, as though it fizzes through the air and sets alight every sense in the room.

I never see it enough.

Never.

I realise I'm staring when Harry clears his throat loudly next to me which causes me to jump in my seat, nearly slide off it to the floor and emit a high-pitched yelp of surprise. In gazing at Kathryn, I had completely missed the fact that he was standing next to me holding a padd at the end of an outstretched arm.

"Dammit Harry, wear a bell!"

Shit.

My face is going red. I know it. I feel it.

Oh Gods.

This is embarrassing as all hell.

I attempt to clear my throat in an act of composure but it fails me, as the second I open my mouth to speak to Kim my voice breaks, painfully, a high-pitched squeal seems to escape my lips followed by a warbled "Thank you Ensign."

And then all I'm aware of is Kathryn's shoulders shaking hard with silent laughter, her stomach muscles contracting with the force of mirth and causing her to rock forward occasionally as if in pain. If I couldn't hear the muffled sound of cackling and sharp intakes of air when the laughter dissolves enough to allow oxygen intake, I would say she needed medical attention, so violent is the laughter overtaking her.

I'm glad my awkwardness and embarrassment is entertaining.

Did they realise I was staring at her?

Did she realise I was staring at her?

Why was I even staring at her?

I then realise Tom is also giggling away into the helm, something which is fatal for Kathryn, once someone else joins her in laughing, she can't stop. It keeps going. And going. I've seen her on the point of passing out from laughter more than once.

The shaking in the chair next to me increases, so much so that my seat is starting to vibrate somewhat. Kathryn is trying desperately to hide her face and pretend she's extremely interested in reading her padd but she is failing miserably at reigning the laughter in.  
She rises somewhat quickly, takes long and swift strides across the deck and disappears from view into the Ready room.

Shortly thereafter, comes a throaty and loud cackle. Tom is sliding down his seat and disappearing under the conn with the force of his laughter, Harry is pretending to be checking the panel at his feet while laughing into his shoes, Ayala is red faced with the effort of not laughing and Tuvok looks as confused as a zebra in a cow field.

I'm not sure what tickled them more, me getting caught gazing at the Captain or the sound of my voice break or my nearly falling ass on the deck but either way they're getting their money's worth and I'm hoping the deck suddenly loses all its molecular structure and swallows me up into oblivion.


	3. The Warning Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Not mine, never were, never will be. Please don't sue me because I'm seriously poor to the point I'd have to pay you in jammy dodgers and good intentions. Go watch the show and enjoy it and be grateful to the powers that be that are indeed Voyager's keepers.

* * *

By the time Kathryn has emerged from her Ready room, the day has passed into late afternoon. The rest of day has been as routine as they come, with the added bonus of complete humiliation to boot.

Tom had spent the day aiming gentle gibes my way, nothing I've not faced before from Tom however annoying, no doubt he can't wait to tell B'Elanna so the teasing can continue, something you have to put up with, living in a gossip mill that serves as the only form of entertainment for some of the crew.

When the Doctor had been stuck in his day dreams and we had accessed them in order to help his failing program, I felt the complete and total humiliation that would overtake him because we all had seen the deepest of his desires from the weird to the all-out kinky as hell. The holo-man wanted nothing more than a naked Borg and a promotion but it had been laid out for all to see in painful detail.

Later that day, as Kathryn cackled her way through a bottle of wine about the whole affair and I had, ashamedly, laughed along with her as she giggled "Paint me like one of your French girls" – a reference completely lost on me, I hoped that it never happened to me, that no one would ever be able to look into my battered brain and know the innermost secrets of my heart, I would surely die of embarrassment if they did. Having been caught indulging one of these secrets, in staring at Kathryn, I'm hoping my secrets aren't making me transparent for the entire crew to see. Some secrets are not for sharing and this secret is totally and utterly mine.

Most of my day has been spent brooding on this and it's made for somewhat of a miserable day.

Eventually Kathryn strides out purposefully from her hiding place and across the Bridge, totally distracted by the padd she held before her eyes as usual. Her ability to read and walk is something to behold, Gods know I've walked into enough walls to keep it to a minimum but for her it's like an art form, occasionally she throws in drinking coffee at the same time when she's feeling particularly daredevil.

Just as she's at the point of passing straight through the Bridge into the turbo-lift without saying a word, Kathryn looks up suddenly, realises she's forgotten to do something as her face lights up in a visible light bulb moment and backtracks back down the few steps to the Bridge centre.

As she approaches, a minor smile fights for a place on her face as though she feels guilty for allowing herself a moments happiness, however small, when so much suffering has been the overture. Either that or she's got gas because she looks somewhat uncomfortable.

Just as her mouth opens to speak to me, the high-pitched bleep that so often brings bad news with it pings into life and the ship relays a warning of an approaching and armed vessel.

"Captain, we've got a vessel approaching o-..."

Before Kim can continue his sentence, the ship lurches forward suddenly and pitches down as the gentle whine that is Voyagers power fades into nothingness and the ship is plunged into heavy darkness.

"What the hell is going on?!" Kathryn's voice cuts through the nothing surrounding us.

"All systems appear to be completely offline, life support and environmental seem to be the only systems functioning but I can't access them, I can't access anything." Kim sounds somewhat frantic, gentle rhythmic taps alert me to the fact that despite the complete and obvious loss of power, he's still trying to tap at his station as though sheer will could make it work again.

I hear a padded thud and then Kathryn speaks again "Janeway to engineering." She's trying to use her comm-badge but the silence that is the response relays the message, we are dead in space and we are sitting ducks, there was a ship out there which is no doubt sharking its way through space dust to reach its prey.

"They must have hit us with some sort of EMP" Harry's voice sounds frightened in the darkness, shaking slightly in its force and higher pitched in tone.

Gee, ya think Ensign Obvious?

"What sort of EMP chooses what systems go offline?" I ask, somewhat confused by the fact that we're not floating on the ceiling and slowly asphyxiating from lack of oxygen. I can't say I've experienced system shut downs that still kindly allow us gravity and life support.

A hand suddenly grips mine causing me to jump, until I realise it's Kathryn attempting to anchor herself and get back to the command chair, the deck tilted under our feet. I'm surprised and somewhat intrigued by how quickly I was able to detect it was her in the darkness and not a homicidal intruder. I'll tell myself it was simple instinct and I'll try to pretend it wasn't because I caught the faintest hint of the scent of what is uniquely Kathryn that I can identify instantly, I'll convince myself it wasn't because the nearness of her is now identifiable by a sense I have seemingly developed tailored only to her and that it means nothing and I'll be completely wrong.

"How the hell did that happen so quickly? Harry was there nothing on sensors?" Kathryn sounds pissed, nothing unusual there.

"Nothing Captain, they appeared and then we lost the ship at the same moment."

"You weren't able to detect them at all before that?" He should have been able to detect something before the pulse but it's nothing unusual for us at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if the hands of God reached down and pointed us in a different direction, if anything unbelievable or freakish can happen, it will, to us, at length.

"There was nothing Captain, they were either cloaked or FTL because the sensors have been picking up nothing but long-range vessels and planetoids all at a range beyond 2 lightyears, there was nothing in the immediate region, but without being able to look at the data Captain and confirm for sure, I'm working just as blind as we all are now."

"Side-arms people, we don't know what's coming next so prepare yourselves inc-..." A deep and heavy shudder begins to groan its way through the ship, the metal heaving and sighing as the vibrating increases in strength. The rattling of the ship seems to grow to deafening heights before ceasing along with the shudders and almost instantly a blue glow lights the deck as a visible blue light begins to sweep across all things.

It must be some sort of scan.

In the light I can see Kathryn, her face creased with worry and frustration unable to do anything but cling to the seat as the light advances closer. Tuvok stands at his station, a phaser ready in his steady hands, watching the light with a raised brow.

The silence is eerie, even as it passes over a visibly disturbed but apparently unharmed Paris, no one utters a word. Slowly the light creeps around the entire Bridge, passes over all of us and disappears, no doubt scanning the rest of the ship.

In the darkness, the only thing audible is Harry's panicked breathing and what I imagine to be Kathryn tapping her impatient frustrations against the arm rest, a habit she has had since long before Voyager.

Within seconds, a familiar whine and hum begins to reverberate and Voyager comes back to life. Almost as instantly, everyone is frantically scrambling at their consoles, searching for answers and reassurance that we aren't about to die.

"Captain, the vessel is not being detected on sensors, from what I can observe, it has gone." Tuvok's calm monotone drifts across the bridge, as Harry, visibly sweating, taps away at his console. "All systems functioning within the normal parameters, I'm not detecting any changes but I suggest we run full diagnostics."

"Until we know what that was, take no chances, I want every system onboard checked and a full security sweep Mr Tuvok, better to be safe than sorry." Kathryn sounds as worried as I feel, she's risen from her command seat and is pacing behind Tom, the carpet well-worn into dulled colours from her years of worry walking. "Keep us at Red Alert until we can be sure of the situation."

"The Doctor's reporting no casualties, I'll advise him to run a program diagnostic on himself to be safe." Harry sounds somewhat calmer but is still unsure of himself. "Because the systems were offline, we've got absolutely nothing on what just happened. All the sensors were able to report was of a massive energy discharge and then the systems shut down. There's no data on the vessel or the energy wave. The system does show that the entire ship's database was accessed during the power down."

"Engineering to Bridge." Torres crackles into life, a slight static audible through the comm.

"Go ahead B'Elanna." Kathryn answers biting a nail and pacing, lost in thought.

"Power seems to be completely restored, we're not sure what just happened but we're running a full warp core diagnostic." She sounds stressed. She hates not knowing what's going on and right now, she probably feels everyone will be looking to her for answers, power is her department after all.

"Keep me updated Lieutenant, Janeway out." Kathryn rubs her brow and turns to me "So either we've got the nosiest and sneakiest unknown new friend, or we've just encountered an enemy that now has all the information on this ship it could ever want, including its defence."

"Seven to Bridge." Just what we need, a pissy Borg.

"Go ahead Seven." Kathryn answers far more exasperated than when she answered B'Elanna. Lately Seven has been grating Kathryn a little, her determination to outdo all and sundry being the main cause. Her attitude is not to the puppet masters liking perhaps.

"Captain, I believe we have just encountered a species known to the Borg." Of course, the Borg know everything after all.

"Report to the Bridge Seven." She closes the comm with a gentle swipe of her badge and heads towards her Ready room. "Senior staff meeting in 15 minutes." Just enough time to get herself a coffee in anticipation of what will probably be a trying end to the day.

* * *

"The what now?" Tom has never looked more alert or concerned in a staff meeting.

"The Titson." Seven's reply is emotionless and unaware of the reason why Tom is now laughing hysterically. He goes to say something and before he has the chance to begin to utter the inevitable joke, Kathryn raises her finger and shoots him the death glare.

"Too easy Mr Paris, I suggest you save that creative thinking for what we're going to do about our current situation." Tom swallows Kathryn's words and his laughter in an audible gulp and looks down, dejected at not being allowed the opportunity to complete the Species name with a childish and profane suggestion. I however, am entirely too childish and find myself pulling out my padd, typing a covert message to Tom and smiling, satisfied with myself when he begins to visibly fight the overwhelming laughter threatening to spill out by one simple word – ass.

"The Titson –…" Another chortle from Tom. "- are not only technologically advanced, but physically, culturally and mentally too. Not only do they possess advanced weaponry, they are also telepathic. They proved to be more of a challenge to the Borg than anticipated and were categorised as a threat."

"If even the Borg are scared of them, what the hell are we supposed to do? Throw Neelix at them?" Torres throws her hands up in the air and looks at Seven with impatience.

"Not scared Lieutenant, just intelligent enough to know when it is inefficient to sustain heavy damage in return for nothing. We were unable to match their defences or adapt to their weaponry, the loss would have outweighed the gain." I find it strange Seven still has some defence for the Borg, despite their totalitarian methods and lack of mercy, she still retains a respect for the Hive I will never fully understand and she will never truly sever.

"Either way it doesn't sound like we're in any shape for a fight against them and the first thing we'll know about it when they return is when we're blasted to hell and there's nothing we can do about it." Torres has gone slightly red faced with the effort of her words.

"Calm down Lieutenant, it's a case of _if_ they return and _if_ they're hostile towards us. We don't even know what they want or if they are even going to bother coming back. It could have been an intelligence gathering mission or at worse a pre-emptive strike." Kathryn is pacing the room as usual, just behind my chair, hands in the fluid motion of her emphatic talking. "Assuming anything has never been of advantage to us before and it won't be now. All we can do is be prepared for as many eventualities as we can and hope their intention isn't hostile. The fact they collected data but had the mind to leave our life support systems in place shows they're not some sort of ruthless and mindless species. It was a decision that shows they could have destroyed us very easily but they aren't in the business of shooting first and asking questions later." She gently glides into her chair and places her grasped hands on the table before her.

"From what the Borg could ascertain, they are generally not hostile unless provoked, it is probable that the scan we encountered is simply intelligence gathering, their hierarchy consisted of what I believe is referred to as Oracles, highly respected individuals who value knowledge more than material possessions. They rarely interact with lifeforms outside of their own species directly, they were known to collect data rather than engage in any form of contact." Seven looks disturbed by her own words, as though hearing herself speak them confirms a fear in herself, that this Race rivals her own and has done so without mindless and remorseless violence. Another confirmation to her that maybe she is the Monster that hides under the bed for the weak minded.

"Seven I would like a full report on everything that you can remember about the Titson –..." Another giggle from Tom. "– I would like all diagnostics and reports to me by shift end, this could be unnecessary worry or this could be preparation for yet another round with the Delta Quadrant, either way I want the entire crew and the ship ready for every eventuality, if possible. B'Elanna, anything you can come up with in case of another power loss would be a bonus." Everyone nods in receipt of message and rises to leave, as I do the same Kathryn gently lays a hand on my arm to stop me.

The senior team file out the door quietly and the doors close with a gentle hiss.

"Chakotay, I have a confession." Kathryn's eyes are at that serious shade of burden and while the spontaneous side of me is hoping this confession involves a lot of lusting after me and ends with us going at it on the conference table, the professional and intelligent side of me knows that this isn't going to be a confession I'm going to like.

Kathryn takes a breath, paces slightly and studies the floor while I retake my seat and wait for the inevitable shit storm of Starfleet directives that no doubt is involved in this secret of hers.

"I am more than well aware of who the Titson are, as are Starfleet." As she had started speaking, Kathryn had been looking at her shoes, but with the end of the sentence she raised her head directly at me with a look I can't quite identify. "Around the same time the Borg made themselves known, so did the Titson. The science vessel "Delphi", ironically enough, encountered a destroyed Borg Cube in the Beta Quadrant, only it wasn't just destroyed Chakotay, it was completely obliterated, there was barely anything left but dust and minor debris. Shortly after the Delphi lost power and were scanned by an unknown vessel." Kathryn grows silent, her pacing given pause as she fidgets with her fingers in the worrisome way she does often. "The Delphi experienced much in the same of what we just did, only after they were scanned, the vessel didn't vanish, it made contact."

"I thought Seven said they don't make contact with other species?"

"Well this is probably the reason they don't anymore. Starfleet saw this as an opportunity to make an ally that could help deal with the Borg threat once and for all and ordered the Captain of the Delphi to make First Contact and begin negotiations. During the First Contact, the Titson did not share Starfleet's vision of an alliance, they reportedly condemned Starfleet and what they viewed as their barbaric methods and warned the Captain of the Delphi that such behaviour would only hasten them to their end."

"So, they don't want to be involved in other species drama is what I'm hearing." I say. If only all other species we encounter could be so peaceful, we might actually make it home in one piece.

"They maintained that had the Borg not provoked them with the use of weapons, the Cube would not have destroyed, that they were a mostly peaceful race who wanted only to better their knowledge than to obliterate others and would not take part in the active destruction of another species."

"Clever people." I smile.

"If only we were so clever Chakotay, because Starfleet in their infinite wisdom decided that just because the Titson didn't want to actively participate didn't mean they couldn't be of some use. They ordered the Captain to scan the Titson's database and gather as much information as possible to help them form their own defence against the Borg, with or without permission." Kathryn sighs slightly as she talks, I'm getting the feeling that this is not going to end well at all.

"The First Officer was caught downloading from the computer without authorisation and the Titson responded by throwing the crew off the ship, wiped all data from their systems, confiscated a number of weapons the crew had managed to smuggle from the vessel and ordered them to leave the sector. Shortly after the Titson took their leave and Starfleet ordered the Delphi to return, to study further what little data they still had, only the Delphi never made it home." Kathryn's sigh this time is bigger and wearier.

"After a week they stopped communicating, hails went unanswered, other vessels in the vicinity were unable to find them on long range scans… A year later the Delphi was found adrift in a nebula. It was though initially that perhaps the ship ran into difficulties and the Delphi took refuge in a nebula hoping the radiation would provide them some cover while making repairs or hiding from the enemy but when the ship was boarded a whole other story emerged." Kathryn pales slightly and takes a seat. "The ship was in perfect condition; the crew were not. There were no survivors." Kathryn pales somewhat and a nervous feeling settles in my stomach.

"The Titson?"

"I'm afraid not. Themselves." Kathryn shakes her head as she speaks, as though still in disbelief.

"What?" The whole crew killed themselves? Surely not...

"From the state of the bodies and after the logs of the crew were analysed, after their encounter with the Titson, they began to exhibit signs of what was first thought by the ship's Doctor to be Space Sickness, but soon the Doctor began to report crew experiencing anxiety, paranoia, hallucinations, all out delusions…. Until… The crew went mad… and killed one an another, the Captain was found bound to his Command Chair without a head, the First Officer decapitated him and mounted it to the Ready Room wall, the Doctor was found to have been "operated" on by the Mess-Hall Officer and their chief Science Officer was found in 70 different specimen jars…"

"Woah Kathryn, too much detail there…" I don't deal well with gore. My stomach heaves with the thought of it.

"You should have seen the holo-images." She grimaces slightly and swallows hard. "The last crewman to die was an Ensign by the name of Dorel, the last recorded log entry on the ship was him gutting the First Officer on the Bridge before killing himself with a phaser, his last words on the log were "If the Titson deem us unworthy, then so will God." I don't think I'll ever get the sound of his voice out of my head after listening to that, it was years ago but I can still recall it clearly."

"You certainly get all the interesting training at Starfleet, I must have missed that course."

"It was the same week I was told of the Omega Directive, they tend to throw all the top-secret information at you right before they shove you out the door." She shakes her head once again. "The thing that really gets me, when the logs were looked at in depth for the entire crew, each crewman that had an issue or problem with another crewman ending up killing that person when the madness set in, what were petty arguments before between crew became murder." She buries her eyes behind her hands and rubs them tiredly.

"Can you imagine if that happens on Voyager? They'll be a queue to deactivate the Doctor and murder Neelix with a leeola root…" She laughs absentmindedly and I know she's indulging the dark sense of humour that lurks in our darkest moments.

A moment passes as we both try to calculate the situation on Voyager if we were the ones who had crossed the Titson. Anger and pain go far to making an inescapable maelstrom of chaotic insanity. This ship would implode with rivalries and jealousy.

"So, what do we do?" I feel stupid for asking but Kathryn's holding all the cards right now for a game I wasn't aware I was in or how to play it.

"I have no idea and that's what terrifies me Chakotay, if Starfleet knew we had encountered them I have little doubt of what their orders would be because they're the same orders we were given when first told of them – Gather as much data as possible without engaging the enemy."

"So, they are the enemy then?" I ask, slightly confused by the fact they are non-hostile till provoked, don't provoke them and they're not the enemy.

"It would appear so, but my gut instincts say we steer well clear, we stay on course, wipe the logs of any evidence and pretend we never encountered them because I'll be damned if we're going to provoke them into repeating history." Kathryn's tone has changed to one of "Don't fuck with me.". If I had been drinking tea I would have choked on it as the realisation of her words settle.

"You're willing to break orders on this?" Kathryn Prime Directive is God Janeway wants to defy orders and even go as far to conspire to destroy official logs and data? Dear Gods the worlds finally turning upside down. My head injury must have been worse than I thought or Kathryn's just lost her mind.

"Yes. Totally." She says with an air of matter of fact. "If you'd studied the reports and holo-images you would too Chakotay. What happened on the Delphi is not happening to us and the chances are it will if we engage with the Titson. Their history with Starfleet is not something to be ignored. We're outmanned and outgunned as far as I'm concerned and poking this hornet's nest won't just leave us stung, it will leave us swarmed out and unrecognisable. There are somethings worthy of risk, this is not one of them." Kathryn leans back in her chair and slumps somewhat, looking to me for a response.

"You know I'd back you to hell if you so wanted Kathryn, but this isn't a decision we can make without the crew being fully aware. They're going to have to commit mass perjury, if we ever get back to Earth, we'd all be subject to court martial and as it is, my chances of being a free man are slim if we return, a terrorist who commits perjury aboard a beloved Starfleet vessel isn't going to be welcomed with open arms. If you order them to do this, then you'll be the new public flogging spot Kathryn."

"Maybe, or maybe no one would ever find out, either way I'm willing to take the heat if necessary but I will not lead this crew willingly to a blood bath." Her eyes are flaring with that volcanic ferocity that lurks whenever her flock are threatened. A familiar warm tightening starts to occur in my groin and a tingle flushes my spine.

I can't help it, when she's angry she's sexy as all hell.

I'm a sick man.

"I say… we wait a few days, see if the Titson do return, if they do, we'll deal with that if and when, if they don't, then I fully support whatever decision the Captain makes, as always." I offer.

"A very subtle passing of the buck." She smiles behind her words, knowing full well I can't make anything my decision without pulling another mutiny.

"I can't make this decision for you Kathryn, I can't stop you from riding into hell but I can saddle up alongside you." Saddle up? What the hell old man? You've got to stop watching Tom's idiotic goggle box with those old Western films.

"Yeeha Mr Chakotay." Kathryn smiles and the conversation turns to the ifs and whens and the day fades into evening with little effort.

* * *

By the time I return to my Quarters, there are only a few hours till I'm required to leave them again for Duty. Sleep deprivation is the most common ailment the Doctor has to treat aboard Voyager and this week will be no exception.

Kathryn and I had spent a great deal of time going over reports and diagnostic data that filtered through from the different departments, all showing that for the most there was little evidence of our brief encounter with the Titson. The relief was short lived as it meant there was still some tracks to cover, but Kathryn decided that it was for the best that she order the system wiped of any data pertaining to the Titson and she would happily fall on the sword for the entire crew once again.

Another attempt to balance the scales of injustice that stemmed from the original decision she made that led us to being stranded.

Tuvok had been tasked with most of the dirty work of covering our tracks and had done so unquestionably and swiftly with only a raised eyebrow betraying his unease.

In one act of defiance, Kathryn has put her entire career and reputation on the line, if we ever make it home, she will be sitting in a prison cell and her entire world will cease to be.

Starfleet has been the breath in her lungs for longer than she will admit, the curiosity she indulges behind an exploration mask will never be sated while she remains with feet planted firmly on the ground behind a forcefield. Her entire way of life will crumble into regret and what little of Kathryn Janeway that still remains will blow away on unseen winds. She has faced so much with a frequently tested tenacity and to know she's suddenly willing to risk everything proves that her self-destructive side is still in full force and will probably never leave her psyche until she is satisfied she has been punished to a Janeway approved level.

None of this sits well with me, Kathryn's eagerness to defy orders and take the heat, a species that could annihilate us with little to no warning, or the fact that the crew could soon be turning the ship into a floating slaughter house… It's a little too much drama for my liking.

After brushing my teeth, washing my face and changing into my boxer shorts, I stretch out as comfortably as I can on the bed, although inevitably my feet still manage to hang off the end, the downside of being the size I am, although it works well to intimidate when needed, I rarely fit comfortably into a bed without having limbs awkwardly hanging off the ends. The worst thing of all is when I move in my sleep and my feet catch against the main frame of the bed causing a bang and a scratching noise that never fails to scare the balls off of me in my sleepy state.

An Ex-Girlfriend was once convinced that my apartment was haunted, as every night she would be woken by mysterious scratching noises and assorted thumps coming from the darkness at the end of the bed, one time she went as far as to take off screaming at the speed of light into the night, dressed in nothing but her shame, when I rolled over and my foot caught the frame enough to cause it to shake. The last I ever saw of her was that night, the sight of her running ass to the wind down the street screaming something about an exorcist is something I will never forget, happily.

At most I'll get 3 hours of sleep before needing to report to the Bridge. Nothing unusual sadly but something other than the nightmare of our possible fate is bothering me.

Kathryn is willing to defy orders to keep her crew safe in the face of extreme danger. Something she has never considered before. And it's not that I don't think she's doing the right thing, it's that she is actually capable of making a decision that goes above her job and she has never done so before when she could have.

Every time that Prime Directives and Starfleet Protocol has been a problem, she has continually chosen the Starfleet way and used it as an excuse to not pursue something I think equally important as avoiding death… embracing life. She has chosen time and time again to keep Starfleet between herself and whoever poses a threat to the damned directives and protocol that is her conscience.

Sleep takes a while to come to me while my mind ponders over how things could be different if Kathryn had chosen ignore Starfleet rules in other situations. As I get to a particularly interesting scenario that has started in the Ready room so many years before, involving a rose and an ill-timed Q, one of the rare moments that showed a real promise of something… more… thoughts of what would have happened without the interruption dissipate into uneasy scenes of the damned tree that has been haunting my dreams so, the bird still screaming, the flames still scorching the air and ground and the intense feeling of doom consuming me.

The bird still flapping and screaming, swoops towards her nest, the flames had crept too close for comfort and the intent to save her nest and its occupants, her young, seemed ill-fated. The twigs and dried leaves of the structure already starting to smoulder and singe. In a movement, so swift I almost missed it, she knocks the nest from the tree branch just as it crumbles into charred wisps of what had been a mighty and strong growth.

I anticipate the moment the nest hits the ground with a terrified anxiety, knowing it will collapse and scatter and no doubt obliterate all it contained, but before this can happen, the red bird swoops once more on a grand wingspan down, catching the nest upon her back and wings as though catching one of her own feathers. I notice as she balances the nest that in catching the nest, a number of her feathers are blackened and frayed, damaged by the flames she flew so close to. It then pulls up sharply and soars away from sight into the smoke, one wing noticeably struggling. I hear the sound of blood rushing in my ears and scream myself awake, sweating and confused.

* * *

Author's notes: Yeah… so I went there with the Tisonass joke… I apologise.


	4. The Warning Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Not mine, never were, never will be. Please don't sue me because I'm seriously poor to the point I'd have to pay you in jammy dodgers and good intentions. Go watch the show and enjoy it and be grateful to the powers that be that are indeed Voyager's keepers.

* * *

"Good morning Commander, how's the head?"

The Doctor is not someone you want to see first thing in the morning, but as my shitty luck would have it, the second I left my quarters to report for duty on the Bridge, the Doctor rounded the corner on his way to the same turbo-lift I was hoping to take quietly to the Bridge.

"Not too bad Doctor, a mild headache but nothing else." I attempt to smile but it comes off as more of a grimace when I try to smile when I'm anything but happy. The Doctor pretends not to notice and grins his way into the turbo-lift, humming some Gods-awful pitched song that was well beyond his range.

"You're lucky the Captain didn't leave you with permanent brain damage, when the Hirogen turned us into a floating holodeck of horrors, she did more damage to them than they did to her, for a small woman she is certainly scrappy." This makes me smile uncontrollably.

That's my girl.

Wait.

She's not my girl… I mean… that's… my… Captain?

"She certainly was a sight to see during the Crusades, riding into battle on a mighty stallion, hair flowing in the wind…" The Doctors voice trails off as an absentminded smile settles on his photonic face, no doubt accessing the memory of the experience, if I didn't know better I would say that Seven wasn't the only crush the Doctor was harbouring. For a moment, I expect him to break into some sort of dramatic aria commemorating the day but instead his smile turns to a frown "She didn't fare as well during the Roman simulation sadly, but then again who would up against a lion?"

What the fuck is he talking about?

Conversing with the Doctor is a rhetorical experience for the Doctor, few have chance to respond as he rarely shuts up long enough to allow others a word in and he frequently chooses the weirdest topics to have a conversation about that none others have the chance to understand.

The first and only thing I remember about the Hirogen holo-hunt simulations is being in a cave with drunk Klingons and then being shot at by a bunch of Octo-Nazis. It wasn't something I was hoping to relive at this time of the morning.

The turbo-lift thankfully comes to a quick stop, allowing the Doctor exit and leaving me to a few minutes peace in the lift back up to the Bridge before my shift. A few moments to prepare for what could be a hellish day. But now all I can think about is Kathryn, going at the Crusades Boudicca style, on a horse with a sword raised ready to raise her own hell...

Arrrghh shit, it's giving me a boner.

Damnit, this is the Doctor's fault.

Think of something else man. You can't walk onto the bridge at full mast and expect no one to notice.

Think of something boring.

Or unappealing.

Think man.

Think.

Inventory reports.

Tuvok's training drills.

Nope still there, oh man come on! Just go away, stand down soldier!

The Doctor's lectures.

Come on!

Neelix.

That's done it.

The turbo-lift doors open with seconds to spare and only a hot blush on my cheeks is evidence that I was just imagining the Captain going full Lady Godiva in the Crusades.

"Good morning Commander." Tuvok is the first as always to greet me, strange that it's always the least sociable person on the Bridge to notice me.

"Good morning Tuvok, all well?"

"As well as can be expected Commander." He dips his head and goes back to tapping his console with rhythmic thuds.

Well that was a fulfilling chat…

Kathryn raises a hand and lazily waves a half-hearted good morning while never taking her eyes off the padd she's engrossed in, Harry yawns a smile, Sam Wildman beams as usual, she's far too chipper for my liking and Tom simply nods a good morning. Taking my seat, Kathryn holds a hand up gently, as to say that she fully understood we need to talk for the ceremonious report of duty but she's apparently just got to a good bit in whatever she's reading and needs a second to enable her full attention is given to me.

After a few moments, she lowers both the padd and her hand, offers a small smile as way of a greeting and launches into a full report of everything that's occurred in the last four hours since we last spoke.

Tuvok has successfully swept any data on the Titson encounter under the rug and for all intents and purposes, we encountered nothing worthy of mention during the last few days.  
He did confess some unease at his orders to Kathryn, who assured him it was her responsibility and he was simply carrying out his orders, just as he should. The senior team is on the understanding that the Titson encounter never happened and to pass it down through the ranks that they are to point in Kathryn's direction should we find ourselves back home and suspected of not carrying out orders in connection with the Titson.

I can tell Kathryn hasn't slept, her eyes are bruised and shallow with weariness and soon enough I'm sure she'll be trying her usual trick of digging her fingernails deep into her hand to keep herself awake, something she does far too often and keeps a dermal regenerator squirreled away for when she gets too carried away. I guess she thinks no one can see her doing it when she curls her finger into her palm with a slight force, maybe no one else has ever noticed, but I have frequently.

Most of the physical ticks of her anxiety revolve around her hands, the most noticeable is when she fidgets with her fingers, as though she had smoked heavily for most of her life, recently quit and struggled to fill the missing space between her fingers with anything satisfying…. The thought had occurred to me to offer her something else to fill her hands but she'd probably demote me on the spot to the Mess Hall and never speak to me again so sometimes it's best to keep it to the imagination, although if this morning is any indication of my out of control hormones, it's best to keep that to a minimum too.

Beside me Kathryn stifles a yawn with the back of her hand, flicks at the screen of her padd and continues to read whatever had her so distracted when I first arrived on the Bridge. I had attempted to busy myself with the Bridge rota but my mind keeps wandering to places other than Voyager's staffing.

Thoughts of birds, of Captains riding horses, of fire and screams encircle my concentration waiting for a momentary lapse to insert themselves in place of anything professional. I'm guessing that Kathryn using me as a swinging target has knocked something loose in my will because my ability to control my thoughts is weaker than normal. Then again, it's surprising I had any will left to lose, it's been a hell of a few years far more than it was an easy ride.

Hours seem to pass relatively quietly, lost in my thoughts and Kathryn lost in tiredness.

So quietly in fact that when the gentle whine of Voyager's power diminishes to silence and the ship pitches downwards into darkness again, it takes us both longer than I'm ashamed to admit to notice.

"Damnit, report!" Kathryn's gravel travels across the bridge, her tone unmistakable in every situation.

"Same thing again Captain" Harry's voice sounds less frightened and more inconvenienced than yesterday. "Complete power loss, systems not responding, only life support and gravity functioning but unresponsive to commands."

I can hear a few mysterious cracks in the darkness followed by a strange green hue glowing around Tuvok, in his hands a dozen or so phosphorus glow-sticks. One by one, he gently throws them to each of the Bridge crew, until we all look like we're attending the shittest rave known to mankind.

The angle the ship is now sitting at is causing us all to pitch forwards ourselves, so the turbo-lift doors are now uphill from the Command seats, Kathryn is trying to look as though she's casually holding onto her seat, but the white knuckles I can just see in the dim glow betray the fact she's having trouble staying upright.

"Be alert with your firearms ready, just because nothing happened before doesn't mean the same will happen now." Kathryn looks terrified. Her breathing is somewhat shallow and her fingers that aren't clinging to the armrest are furiously fidgeting with nerves.

A groan of metal heaving sighs its way through the ship once more, and the ship pitches forward at an even more sharper angle. Everyone is now frantically grabbing at whatever they can to keep themselves upright but the angle is too much, those fortunate enough to have a console in front of them have something to at least stop them from plunging down the deck towards the view screen that is now the floor, but for myself and Kathryn, it's a whole other situation.

I had just managed to reach behind me in time to grab the railing before my feet left the floor and I became a large blob on the view screen, I'm now hanging like a bear out to dry on a washing line.

Kathryn is hanging from the command chair, her glow stick falling out of her hand in her hurry to grab the railing behind the seats before she had chance to fall. As she grips it tightly and counters her weight to her swinging legs, I watch her glow stick hit Tom Paris square in the face, bounce off and hit him squarely in the nuts with a hell of a gravitational force and the uncontrollable urge to laugh is strong despite the inappropriate timing. All of us are hoping not to be the first to lose grip and fall to a painful end via the view screen and the hilarity of the sight of Kathryn unintentionally scoring a Paris bullseye with a glow stick is apparently stronger than my fear.

Another metal heaving sound vibrates through the silence and a sudden jolt shakes the ship and all of our grips become less reliable. Tom has pulled himself along the helm console and made it to the metal plating that is usually the view screen which for now is his floor. He winces as he attempts to stand upright and a pang of guilt hits me for wanting to laugh, despite the guilt, I do laugh, suddenly and uncontrollably.

Only we could find ourselves in such ridiculous and dangerous situation.

Kathryn turns to looked at me totally confused as to why now of all times I'm giggling like a drunk schoolgirl, her eyebrows rivalling Tuvok's, causing me to laugh harder.

So hard in fact that I lose my grip and start to slip forward towards the view screen when suddenly a hand grasps my wrist and catches me before I can go any further.

I'm entirely sure they've just broken my wrist but they've also just saved my life so fair game, it's only when I look up that I see Kathryn, now holding on to the chair with one hand and the other grasped firmly around my now throbbing wrist.

"Going somewhere Commander?" she says with a strained effort.

You've got to be fucking kidding me…

Kathryn has the strength to do this?

What is she made of, titanium?

This is humiliating.

A 5'5 twig is currently the only thing between me and death right now….

Paris holds his arm's out as if he was holding an invisible baby and smiles "Want me to catch you Chakotay?" Smug bastard. He's loving this.

"Paris, no offence, but fuck off." The smile disappears from his face and instead appears on Kathryn's face despite the fact we're hanging on for dear life.

An ominous banging starts to reverberate through the ship, as though someone or something is attempting to barge its way through the hull. Kathryn rolls her eyes in defeat and grunts gently as she shifts her weight, I'm starting to worry about breaking her wrist now and how she's even still holding both our weight with one arm is genuinely baffling me.

As the situation starts to sink in somewhat and we patiently wait for an alien to kick down the door, one of us to lose grip and fall to our deaths or for the Titson to open fire and we all implode into space dust, I consider the many stupid decisions that led me to this moment.

I regret letting my weight increase more than ever.  
I regret every single second helping of food I ever took.  
I regret every day I avoided the gym.  
I regret every carbohydrate that has passed my lips happily.  
I regret ever meeting Seska.  
I regret my anger and bitterness.  
I regret not spending more time doing more meaningful things.  
I regret every single sexual encounter I've had since being on Voyager, and I sincerely regret that not even one of them involved Kathryn.

Tuvok has crept his way gingerly along his console and jumped down to the bridge railing running behind the Command seats, he kneels and extends both his arms to Kathryn to offer support and hopefully a way up that doesn't involve landing on Paris' head. Harry has managed to climb down his console and onto the railings himself, balancing carefully to lower himself flat, hang his body over the edge and reaches an arm down towards Kathryn to grip her arm as Tuvok has already done but a jolt shakes the ship, I feel a snapping ping in my hand like a rubber band snapping under my touch and realise Kathryn's wrist has just broken, badly, a grimace and pained grunt escaping her as everyone attempts to stay balanced.

If we had been a dangling a few inches to the right, my feet would have just been able to reach the other railing but as fate would seem to always have it for us, it just wasn't our day.  
Tuvok leans further down, supports Kathryn's arm with both hands and along with Harry they begin to pull us towards the railing, both of them sweating with adrenaline fuelled strength.

Before they are able to pull us any distance, the sudden electric whine of Voyager's power hums back into life and there's just enough time for Kathryn to whisper to me a panicked "Oh No" before Voyager, now resurrected, immediately rights the ships angle and in doing so the deck comes up to meet us as we slam unceremoniously downwards into it with the change of gravity, I watch Tom leap from the view-screen wall back to the deck with a minor tumble, Wildman who had been kneeling on the side of her console the entire time seems to bounce onto her ass and back onto her feet, both Harry and Tuvok fall backwards with their legs in the air and both Kathryn and I body slam into the deck with a shattering force.

My shoulder and hip impact the deck first and I feel an agonising pop in my shoulder as my own body weight slams against it.

Looking up I see that Kathryn impacted the deck face down and isn't moving. Her wrist lying awkwardly bent just above my head, her legs limp beside me.

Gods is she okay?

Please be okay.

Spirits, make her okay.

Tuvok and Harry have scrambled to their stations to maintain some sort of control and Tom has practically thrown himself half way across the bridge to tend to myself and our terrifyingly quiet Captain as Wildman simultaneously leaps across to the helm.

Tuvok activates the red alert and the bridge glows crimson as I attempt to pull myself to a sitting position. My wrist is throbbing and the heat from the swelling is creeping up my arm and hand with a quick intensity, worse is that I can barely move my arm, I think my shoulder has popped out of joint.

"All systems online, the Titson vessel is moving away at impulse." Tuvok's voice is always so collected and concise that it's almost a relief to hear him say anything at all. "Should I bring weapons online?"

"No Tuvok! Hold Weapons." Kathryn's voice suddenly croaks into life, strong and insistent and somewhat muffled by a carpet.

Lifting her head Kathryn pulls herself up to a sitting position, slowly and what looks to be very painfully. Tom attempts to assist her but she bats his hand away as he waves a medical tricorder over her. Her nose is bloody, as is her mouth and what looks like the start of an incredible set of black eyes have left her looking battered.

"Are the Titson still out there?" Kathryn attempts to wipe the blood from her mouth with the back of her hand as she talks but seems to have forgotten she just broke it and winces hard when it touches her face.

"Affirmative Captain, they are maintaining impulse at a heading of 351-mark-10." Harry, his voice betraying the exact same fear I'm feeling right now, tries to maintain some sort of calm exterior but fails because that's the heading home. That's the heading to Earth.

"Are you serious?" Kathryn's head whips round to look at Harry but again she grimaces in pain, obviously her neck is also a casualty if the not very hushed profanity coming from Kathryn's mouth is anything to go by.

"Completely." Harry looks at her with worried eyes and before anyone can say anything the crimson glow of the red alert changes into bright white as the view-screen activates itself from bare metal to the image of a figure surrounded by intense light.

"Kathryn stand down, we are the Titson." The voice that accompanies the image is just as chilling as the idea of the Titson. Despite it being what would appear to be one lifeform speaking, the voice is layered and sounds as though a thousand voices speak in unison, much like the Hive of the Borg.

"You don't say." There is always time for sarcasm when you're Kathryn Janeway. "I see that no introduction is necessary for me." Even when the odds are stacked against her and she stands bleeding upon the deck, Kathryn does not falter in her 'Don't fuck with me' attitude. Tom has given up his attempt to treat her and moved onto me, waving his tricorder and crumple his face in disgust as it goes past my limp and hanging arm.

"We have studied your vessel and crew definitively, we know you better than you know yourselves." The voice is emotionless but still amazingly annoyingly smug.

"I wish we could say the same." They have an advantage over us we can never best and Kathryn's tone speaks of all our anxieties and regret.

"You know enough." Not nearly enough in my opinion but the voice isn't mine to argue with, instead I'm sitting on the deck while Paris presses a hypo-spray to my neck from his med kit and while I can feel the cold rush slowly working in my veins, Kathryn stands dripping blood onto her uniform with her attention focused solely on the Titson representative on the screen.

I wish I could be standing there backing her up, where I should be, but for some reason being around Kathryn and the drama that can enfold from that, I'm usually on my ass while she rides in and saves the day.

"We pose you no threat, we have not engaged with you, what do you want from us?" Kathryn's tone is frustrated and impatient, she's making no attempt to hide the futility she feels against an enemy with essentially a cheat sheet. They know all there is to know already it would seem, what's the point in trying to outsmart or outgun the local God.

"A Starfleet vessel can offer nothing of use to us." Picky bastards.

"So, are you just playing with your food or do you have some imparting wisdom to dispatch before you annihilate us?" I love Kathryn's inability to censor her sense of humour, sarcasm and realism, even in the most dire of situations.

"We have completed the necessary upgrades to your vessel, your encounter with the Borg cube in two days should no longer pose a threat." Right…

Wait, what?

"Come again?" Kathryn echoes the shock resident in both myself and the rest of the Bridge crew if the faces looking confused around at each other is anything to go by.

The chorus repeats again "We have completed the necessary upgrades to your vessel, your encounter with the Borg -..."

Kathryn interrupts "I heard you, I'm just not sure I understand you."

"Your vessel was ill equipped to survive the Borg you will encounter in two days, we have made the necessary upgrades to your weaponry and shielding to ensure you do." Either they are the biggest trolls in the galaxy or we've just been upgraded to tantalising strengths.

"Wha-…" Kathryn's face is bruised shock "I… you… did I miss something?"

"Your destruction was an inconvenience, the information and the former-drone you possess are vital to the peace of all things, to existence without conflict."

What the fuck are they talking about? I've met some pretentious and puzzling lifeforms in my time, but these out riddle any that have come before.

We were destroyed… in two days… or will be destroyed… in the future… which has already happened to them? But yet we're still here… Time loop?... Oh dear Gods don't say the Relativity is about to appear and guide us on another time travelling escapade to hell…. I fucking hate time travel…

"Commander Chakotay, knowledge is power and with it is the ability to know the outcome of all things and of all things and their end." The voice, now directed at me, leaves me red in the face, for their telepathic powers obviously have quite the range and they're quite happily in all of our heads right now no doubt.

"The future and the past are very much the same Chakotay, you need not travel time when time is irrelevant to oneself." To hear them riddle me this and speak my name in that chilling chorus of emotionless tones, makes me run colder than the hypo-spray which has gently numbed the agonising throb of my broken bones.

"Why not just tell us the co-ordinates and we could have avoided that sector?" Kathryn looks exasperated with all the mystery and unsatisfying answers.

"It would not have been sufficient." You don't need to tell me that twice…

"Why are you even helping us at all?" Kathryn asks the question that is probably in all of our minds.

"You would question aid and assistance? This is not what we expected of Kathryn Janeway." That's where you probably went wrong fucktards, never assume you know anything about Kathryn Janeway. The knowledge of her stored in the logs and databanks of the ship, and no doubt from their own explorations of her mind in the short time they've had access to it, in no way shape the women in front of them. Hell, I've known her for years and I still know very little myself about Kathryn, she still manages to surprise me regularly, if not daily and is nothing if not mysterious herself.

"I question it when it just nearly killed my crew." You tell 'em Kathryn.

"Your injuries were unintentional." What an apology, their dinner parties must be a hootenanny.

Before Kathryn can form a response, the view screen turns black and an expanding white light bursts into being on the bridge, dimming to reveal the forms of two Titson, no longer hidden on their ship behind halos of blinding anonymity but now awkwardly stood on the deck.

I wish they had stayed there on their own ship because sweet mother Earth they are some ugly fuckers.

And the moment I think that, the look one of them levels in my direction could melt me to the deck. From what I can tell, someone in their lifeline of ancestry fucked a duck, because they have long white gleaming bills in place of a mouth set upon a white pale skinned face, green eyes like gleaming baubles awkwardly spaced between. Their bodies are pear shaped extending to a stump of a tail at their rear, on top of thin stalk like pink legs peeking out from the long white robes covering the extreme of their body mass and hooded over their head. They don't appear to be feathered but they do appear to be fucking odd.

"I assure you Chakotay that no ducks were involved in our evolutionary process." The slightly fatter of the two Titson speaks, the voice still an echoing cacophony of tones. To know they are in my head is deeply disturbing because there are thoughts in there I would rather keep to myself, either way the response to my thoughts about their appearance tickles Tom enough to cause him to snort an attempt at burying a laugh and dip his head into his med kit for something to make him look busy before the threat of laughter becomes uncontrollable, he's visibly biting his lip and trying intensely to not involve himself in the unfolding madness.

"Might I invite you aboard so we can discuss matters further?" A visibly unimpressed Kathryn, most put out by their sudden intrusion, doesn't bother to keep the sarcasm to a minimum despite the threat of the Titson's previous encounter with a Starfleet vessel. If I was her, in my fear and vain hope I'd be on the deck kissing their fee... flipper things...

"The invitation was there, you just had not verbalised it."

"Where I come from people tend to verbalise intentions, not all of us are capable of telepathy and those that are, do not intrude on others minds without consent." Oooh is she pissed! My favourite Janeway of all, angry Janeway, the one who tickles my fancy…

"Where you come from lifeforms kill one another as a matter of arrogance and war is a game for the bored and greedy." Well that killed the mood, cheerful bastards…

"I came from a cornfield in Indiana so I wouldn't count on it." I know Kathryn's dying to stand hands on hips right now and give them the full Janeway experience but her broken wrist has probably left her unable to do so, instead she shrugs stiffly.

"Yes, where you hide in thunderstorms and grieve lost love from a bed."

Kathryn's face is an emotion I cannot read and for the briefest of moments, I wish I had the Titson's telepathy to know for myself what it is. Whatever the reference was, it had something to do with the Kathryn I don't know at all, the one who existed before Voyager and has only made minor appearances thus far in our journey.

It looks as though Kathryn is arguing with herself, perhaps she is arguing in her mind with them, but either way she repeatedly goes to verbalise a response but fails to form anything resembling a full word.

It is then, as I sit limp on the floor, that I realise why. For in an instant, the lonely voice of my thoughts becomes two voices, followed by a third, a fourth and on and on until I realise that I'm no longer alone in my noggin. I am joined by the crew and Titson in there now. And it's almost deafening.

While Tuvok stands unaffected, his own mental ability thorough capable of dealing with deluge of the entire population of the sector in his head, the rest of the Bridge crew begin to cower and double over, their hands clapped over their ears in dazing confusion. If I could move my arm I would be the same, instead I'm almost flat out on the floor, my body curling uncontrollably into a rocking foetal position, the noise and confusion and the flood of a sea of emotions swirling through my already chaotic mind.

At first each voice is indistinguishable from another, each clambering over one another to plant a thought into being within each other. All of a sudden, the chorus that is the Titson booms louder than any other voice through my mind, stilling all others to a momentary silence.

"Now we are equal. Now you know as we do." If this is what it's like to be a Titson, to know as they do, they can fuck off, this is terrible. No wonder the Delphi went insane, it's not even five minutes in and I already want to chop my own head off.

"You are hurting the crew, they are unable to adapt to this." It is Seven, loud and clear. The last I knew she was skulking around in Astrometrics when everything went to hell, to hear her as though she was stood next to me is unnerving but not surprising, for her, this is probably a nostalgic trip like the Hive mind.

"The mental capabilities of the crew do not extend to this type of stress, this will cause them much damage, I implore you to sever the neural link you have established." Now it is Tuvok, his own abilities to order and control telepathy are strong and capable, and somewhat of a Gods send right now. At least some of some sense is still in control. But at the same time, I feel an anxiety in him that is disarming, something tells me this is testing him to a new level and maybe this could prove too much for even him.

Behind Tuvok's voice, the collective whispers and murmuring of the crew's thoughts as they attempt to still themselves in the chaos, I feel the fear of the many, the anger of the few and something that I cannot identify, all descending into my own, crumbling and churning into one numbing agony.

Somewhere among it all, I suddenly know the Titson, I know their existence and their intentions. I know that they have made improvements to Voyager to aid us in a battle with the Borg we would not otherwise survive. I know that imperative to it all, is Seven's protection and safe deliverance to Earth and that without that, the Borg will sweep every sector of existence to nothingness eventually, that hope lies solely in her.

I even know that the Titson did not maliciously send the Delphi insane, it is only now they realise the consequence of their power in the wrong hands, it is only now they know we are not capable of this type of communication but that it should, if endured, prove more advantageous than any other hardship survived in our journey.

The Delphi was already a troubled vessel, it's crew defined by the dregs of officers on their last chance with Starfleet through their own doing, among them traitors and spies, the bitter and the twisted, burnt by their experiences and close to ejection from Starfleet altogether, their mission one of pursued redemption they never found.

The collective worry is beginning to calm with each realisation, the minds of the many now convinced they are not about to lose their minds and lives in the worst of ways, that the Titson are not a threat to us.

The Titson think of themselves as Guardians. Of the keepers of all that is known and will be. And that once again, the tiny grain of space dust that is Voyager seems to be the last necessary spark of life needed to ensure the survival of all that is and will be. For a small ship, we don't half seem to be a great cog in the grand scheme of things.

I should have stayed at home.

I should have stayed at home…

As the calm begins to settle, the chorus of Titson ceases and the two beings on the Bridge bow, I know it's a form of apology, a sincere one at that. They're drawing back and relenting control back to our individual selves, freeing us from the unison like someone blew the dust off of a long-forgotten treasure. For a moment everyone clambers to get what they can from one another's mind as the link dissipates and the feeling of desperation to drag secrets unwillingly to the surface, attack every neuron.

Then all becomes quiet and calm.

Without the overwhelming chaos, my body relaxes and my anxiety fades to nothing. Despite a searing and ever-present pain still overcoming the hypo from earlier, I feel a relief that I cannot describe. Somewhere between the ripping off of a bandage to the all-consuming orgasm of knee trembling sex. One of which I could really go for right now.

It is as that particular thought ploughs through my brain, that Kathryn's head painfully snaps around to look directly at me, like I've just farted at a funeral.

She didn't hear that right?

They just severed the link, right?

" _Wrong."_  
Oh shit, that wrong didn't come from me… it came from…

" _Me. And you have some serious issues Commander."_

It is Kathryn. Loud and clear.

Oh Gods.

Before my brain shuts down with embarrassment and sheer stress completely, I feel her attention switch back to the bowed Titson.

"We are aware now you are not equipped to deal with the ordeal we just subjected your minds to, the effects should be only temporary and will not be as extreme as the reaction your officers suffered on the Delphi, for which we are regretful. We have left you the necessary data for the upgrades we performed."

"Thank... uh...That's… ah… well you know." I want to laugh at Kathryn and her attempt at a thank you, the link still whispering gently between herself and the Titson, with my own there too, gently present, gently aware.

"Good hunting Voyager, you will prevail." The chorus seems to swell with these words, taking on a powerful and almost melodic tone. They bow gently once more and fade into nothingness so quickly, it was almost as if they were never there. Ghosts of the living haunting the doomed.

Kathryn's shoulders sag and she turns back to look at me, her face swelled with bruising, blood still dripping from various points of injury, her wrist as bloated and black as my own.

" _Never a dull day Mr Chakotay."_ I want to smile at this, at her in my head, but all I can manage is a grimace and a noticeable pang of worry, something which causes Kathryn to react half sympathetically to my pain and half confused to the worry which she can tell is not related to the Titson.

What she can't tell, as I repress it with all my might, is that the worry is entirely based on my thoughts and the trouble this could lead to. And the vague hope that no one else is listening in to Radio Chakotay right now because this could get messy and embarrassing very quickly.


	5. The Warning Chapter 5

Author's notes: Anything in italics at length, is Janeway's voice in Chakotay's head. I apologise sincerely for the forthcoming confusion and mess that is my awful format and style.  
Also this is a loooooooooooooong chapter, because again, awful format and style. I can't apologise enough.

Disclaimer: Not mine, never were, never will be. Please don't sue me because I'm seriously poor to the point I'd have to pay you in jammy dodgers and good intentions. Go watch the show and enjoy it and be grateful to the powers that be that are indeed Voyager's keepers.

* * *

There never seems to be a long enough gap between sickbay visits for me. At this point they could erect and dedicate an entire freaking wing in my name for the amount of time I'm in here, but I've got bigger problems to fry, such as the fact I just let the dangerous word 'erect' out of my thought prison and now I'm worried that the Doctor's going to think I've damaged something else entirely if the swelling continues… I need to get a grip on my libido, so to speak… If I get any more of a grip on it physically I'm going to damage my other wrist….

And these are the thoughts we're trying to avoid dick-head. Calm the fuck down man.

If I concentrate on the ceiling of the sickbay, the wonderful view I currently have from my bio-bed, I can bore myself into thinking about something less damaging.

The Titson departed, swiftly and quietly I might add, disappearing into the stars faster than pancake in Kathryn's presence. Man does she love pancakes…

Man do I love…

STOP IT! Goddamn it man reign it in. If she hears you, you're a dead man.

From what I can tell, unless we're relatively close in each other's presence, the link doesn't seem to be present or weak at best, it's only as we move closer to each other that it seems to be strong and noticeable. It's also only seems to be Kathryn that I can link to.

I can no longer hear Seven or Tuvok or any of the other crew who were hours ago poking about in the recesses of my brain. The crew seem to only retain a link to anyone they are close to in terms of their personal relationship. Tom and B'Elanna are currently driving each other crazy, Seven is stuck with Neelix and Naomi and surprisingly not Kathryn. Kathryn can sense both me and Tuvok, Wildman can sense Naomi, Neelix can sense half the crew, Harry can only sense Tom and no one can sense Harry, which makes me a bit sorry for the sad fellow.

Right now, most of the crew are quietly exploring the novel ability of telepathy with whoever they've retained a link too and as fun as this might seem to the less experienced crew, for those of us with minds we'd rather keep to ourselves and are more than aware of the potential consequences of such abilities, it's somewhat of a living hell.

Right now, Kathryn is as far as she can be from me in the sickbay, to lessen what she tried to explain to me was a distraction from dealing with our encounter. She wants to be the Captain right now and sorting out the insanity we just experienced and she doesn't need any distraction in the form of me bugging the hell out of her mentally while she picks her crew up and dusts them off ready for another round with the Borg that is forthcoming.

The Doctor's attempting to examine the entire crew one by one to make sure no one suffered any permanent brain damage and giving out hypos of painkillers for the inevitable headaches the abilities bring and sleeping aids for when the voice in your head won't quit long enough to let you sleep. I've experienced similar treatments when I have experienced other telepathic incidents, trying to sleep when the other person in your head is wide awake is lethal and the chances of going mad increase with every day that someone inexperienced in dealing with such brain stress, lives with more than one person in their head.

Tuvok is attempting to help as much as he can, attempting to calm the effects in any crewman particularly effected by the experience. Something that will drain and weaken him, but he won't complain. From the little time I was able to sense him, I found a deeper and instant respect for the Vulcan, as tenacious and strong willed as our currently pained Captain.

From here I can just about see her through the glass of the Doctor's office, perched on the side of a console reading a padd with the one hand that has already been treated while the Doctor knits the bones of her wrist back to her nearly severed hand. She damn near had the entire wrist pulled out in her hulk like performance of saving me from a view-screen related death. Her other wrist was near the same, the force of me dangling helpless from her grip caused enough damage to cause the Doctor to tut loudly and repeatedly.

Before the link, I was astounded with the physical strength she showed, with the link I'm not surprised at all. The adrenaline that flows through her, the will and want is overpowering. The weakness she felt she exhibited in not saving her father and fiancé is something she refuses to ever feel again and I have no doubt she would have been holding on with her hind teeth to my uniform if necessary. She will not allow another person to die because she wasn't strong enough.

To know this is disorientating, to know her so deeply and instantly is completely thrown me thrown me through a loop. Even though it has answered the many, many, questions I had, the link is somewhat guarded on her end as it is on mine, she is also holding back a part of her mind and consciousness that she wants no other to access. I can almost visual the wall separating a tsunami of thoughts within her mind.

The force of slamming into the deck broke Kathryn's nose, fractured her orbital floor and fractured her jaw. Despite the Doctor's speedy and miraculous treatment, she will be sore as hell for days.

A whisper of annoyance and impatience is fleeting across my thoughts, Kathryn of course, as I look up, I can see and hear the Doctor is singing that damned aria he's been murdering for days now and it's driving Kathryn crazy. She turns to look at me through the glass pointedly.

" _I'll give you every ration on the ship and all the holodeck privileges you could ever want, if you disable his vocal routines right now, hell I'll give you holodeck one all to yourself all the way home if you want, make the torture end!"_

I laugh quietly, hearing Kathryn in my head is strange enough, but to feel her there is even weirder, it's like having a comm channel only the two of us can access. She's concentrating hard on me to transmit that last thought and is now concentrating hard on the many ways she can punish me should I fail to disable the Doctor's vocal routines. I can see her thoughts of me working alongside Neelix dressed in an equally snazzy outfit as he is wearing and making some abomination of what could be a flan, I see the visualisation of me scrubbing the Jeffries tubes with a toothbrush and of me floating past the view-screen after kicking me out the airlock and I laugh once more.

You've already had one chance to be rid of me today Kathryn, you should have dropped me.

I can see her eyes darken somewhat and the laughter drains from me as she processes my covert thought to her.

" _Never, Chakotay."_

Kathryn turns her attention back to the Doctor and she withdraws temporarily from my mind, as though she's pulled the shutters down and is pretending no one is home.

My arm aches and all I want to do is hide in my quarters away from these dangerous grounds our minds are offering. The Doctor has already relocated my shoulder back into joint and regenerated my wrist, it still feels bruised and tender and will do, for as instant as medical treatment is these days, it's also annoying to feel the pain of an invisible and no longer existent injury, in a few days it will disappear just as the concussion Kathryn gave me days ago did. Hopefully by then, the link will also go. From what Tuvok and the Doctor can tell, the links should fade relatively quickly and shouldn't pose a threat such as the Delphi did.

Tom appears, harassed, looking down at me over the bio-bed.

"Well Chakotay, you're a free man, here's your drugs, good luck." He hands me a bundle of hypos and a padd full of instructions on the how and dosage.

I motion towards his head "How's it going in there?"

He grimaces a reply "You know how B'Elanna never lets anything go and seems to spend 98% of her time nagging me and 2% of it sleeping? That 2% has never seemed smaller or more insignificant and I believe I may about to be the first case of someone murdered by being nagged to death."

I don't envy the man, a pissed off Torres is bad at any time, but all the time with no off switch?

No thank you.

The man has my sympathies, despite the fact that the short time I had insight into his mind was a cesspool of unbelievable sexual depravity.

Worse than me and that's saying something.

It could be worse though, in the short time I could connect with all the crew, I was able to sense Neelix' first sexual experience and that was enough to ensure I never look him in the eye again, it resembled something like two overgrown hamsters humping…

Tom looks from me to Kathryn, still attempting valiantly to ignore the Doctor behind the glass of his office. "How about you and the Captain? Find out any juicy secrets yet? I tried when the link was active with all of us but she's locked up tighter than any safe in the universe, the only thing I sensed from her was a mighty 'fuck off' and not a lot else."

I raise myself up off the bio-bed and steal a glance at Kathryn before turning to Tom.  
"You think I'd tell you if I did? Besides, that's your Captain, Tom, and my Captain too, some secrets are worth keeping from your crew, especially when the crew is as depraved as yourself." Tom nods in agreement, well aware that there's no point in pretending that everyone isn't aware he's somewhat of a humongous pervert now. "Don't think that no one noticed that little imagined kinky scenario in your head about you and the Captain, is there anyone on this ship safe from your imagination?"

"Neelix." His response makes me laugh, I mock salute him and exit the sickbay before I can get close enough to inadvertently transmit any of my own imagined scenarios to Kathryn myself.

* * *

For the last twenty minutes, I've been mentally attempting to count backwards from one million while I'm in the sonic shower.

This is so because of a number of reasons.

This is not my first sonic shower of the night. It's about 0100hrs right now and I cannot sleep.

= My first sonic shower was apparently timed well enough to be the exact moment that Kathryn was also in her sonic shower, something I sensed the moment I stood cheeks to the wind and the rather pleasant tingle of the waves began to circle me.

= Said timing and the ability to sense her, also standing cheeks to the wind in her own sonic shower, nearly gave me coronary as I attempted to not lose immediate control of my thoughts and think… something… that would make our current link situation that much more awkward and not result in me standing with a boner in the bathroom because I have the hormones of a delinquent apparently.

= I got so worked up because of all of this, that a second sonic shower was required to cool me down so to speak. The more I try not to think about it, the harder it gets… so to speak…

= My first attempt at going to bed resulted in my mind going straight to relaxing imagined scenario mode, which is actually more of a torturing, sexually frustrated mode, something my brain does often in preparation of sleep. Realising I have more issues than Paris, I returned to the shower.

= My second attempt at sleep was rudely interrupted by Kathryn and her thoughts booming in my brain, who in her insomniac filled wisdom, has been reviewing the data left behind on our computer by the Titson and the upgrades they installed invisibly. For nearly an hour straight I listened to her worry and doubt and pick apart every inch of the situation in her coffee fuelled all-nighter which has resulted in me feeling like I was shot full of caffeine and may possibly never sleep again, I really need to talk to her seriously about her coffee intake.

= My third attempt to sleep, the second my head tried to touch the pillow, Kathryn began reading fecking Dante, reciting it as she read, loudly and pronounced.

= After admitting defeat and using the Doctor's sedative hypo to attempt some sort of rest between the unfolding drama, Kathryn's thoughts began to withdraw until she quietened entirely. Thinking it was now safe to think freely, I began to drift off towards sleep with the uncontrollable reappearance of the Doctors description of Kathryn's bad-ass Crusades participation. Almost as instantly I could sense Kathryn's reappearance in my mind, as if the sheer thought of her summoned her as instantly.

= Returning to the sonic shower in another attempt to cool off and get a cheeky tingle going from the invisible waves, the hypo kicked in and I started nodding off in the shower and even though I'd lowered the temperature to almost freezer like levels and my ass and back were against an insanely cold wall, it wasn't enough to snap me out of the thoughts threatening to overspill and reveal all before I was ready to show my cards and it wasn't enough to stop me getting a massive boner going from the most fleeting of thoughts and leave me miserable, horny, depressed and sleepy on the shower floor.

= I'm now going to live in here as it's too damn dangerous for me to be anywhere else where thoughts of Kathryn can't be fought off with some mental arithmetic and icy temperatures that are shocking my system out of the danger of my thoughts.

Kathryn must either be asleep, at the other end of the ship or mentally torturing herself into submission away from my mind because she has been quiet for a few hours now in my brain and I… miss her… being there… As though someone removed part of my brain that I never knew I had but can now no longer live without.

In about an hour, the computer will sound a wake-up call I programmed earlier when I foolishly thought I would sleep, and we will start the preparation for the Borg fight we're expecting tomorrow. I'm going to take a detour to Sickbay on my way to duty and get the Doctor to pump me full of stims, the collective weight of the sedative and the ability to be linked to the one mind that terrifies me more than anything the universe has to offer, has left me less than willing to participate in the day, in face I'm ready for a small coma.

From the brief glance I stole at the Titson upgrade data, we could survive a fricking nuclear apocalypse from behind the shielding modifications and annihilate the universe with the weapons which rotate on frequencies I've never realised existed, the Borg won't be able to keep up with the speed of the rotating frequencies either, they're completely unadaptable.

All of this because of a Borg that Kathryn placed faith in, because of a woman who is unlike any other in existence but for as rare as Seven is, I'm more than happy that there is only one of her currently, I don't know if I have the tolerance for more than one frosty chick aboard.

From frosty chicks, to iced cock, I've been in this shower for far too long. I don't think it's possible to be cleaner than I am right now, you could eat your dinner off of my face I'm so clean. Although I'd prefer Kathryn eat her dinner off of something else…

Oh dear gods this is going to be a hellish and long day… my hormones just don't quit for a minute some days...

Spirits give me the strength to survive this day because currently, I'm fucking sure I won't survive intact.

* * *

The Bridge is quiet when I enter.

Too quiet.

Paris is almost slumped over the helm, looking harassed, tired and without the will to continue to live. Harry also looks dejected and sad, no doubt feeling Tom's sullen vibes himself through the link. Sam is yawning wildly, but still manages a small smile good morning, Tuvok looks completely unaffected by events and Kathryn is noticeably absent, both physically and through the link.

Tuvok's handover report is just what I expected, the novelty of reading another person's mind has already worn off and instead half the crew are either lined up in sickbay begging for sedatives or already hibernating through the mental storm.

Thank the spirits that apparently battle day is tomorrow because half the crew are M.I.A. and the crew that remains stoically attempting some sort of normality are far from concentrating, they're distracted as all hell.

"Even from here, from all the way across the ship, I can hear her whining and nagging, it's like this worst radio broadcast known to mankind, she never stops! She just keeps going, on and on…" Tom's sudden outburst from the helm startles me somewhat as I attempt to focus on the report in my hand. He looks beyond harassed. "All night she just kept going and going, Tom you're an idiot, Tom you're beyond hope, Tom I think you need help, Tom you're a pervert… When does it end?!" He's worked himself up into a red-faced agitation. It's no wonder the Delphi went mad….

"Mr Paris, if you focused as I have told you to, you will not be distracted by Lieutenant Torres, the more you concentrate on it, the stronger the link will be, calm your mind and the rest will follow." Tuvok sounds slightly irritated himself, no doubt weary of attempting to reason and calm the insane.

"I'm trying! She keeps forcing her way back in like an angry Targ in a vase shop!" I don't doubt this, B'Elanna will be giving him hell and so would I be after the small insight into his mind yesterday, the woman's due to give birth to his offspring and this time he won't be able to slither away from his duties as he did with his first attempt at creating life. Bastard. Still haven't forgiven him for that one.

"Focus, Mr Paris, your mind is your own." Tuvok speaks without removing his concentration on the console before him, tapping away and continuing to work despite the whining distraction of Tom Paris' dirty laundry.

"Try telling her that!" Tom huffs hard and spins on his seat back towards the helm. The sympathy I feel is fleeting, instead a worry has taken up residence as Kathryn's absence and the link that could ruin our lives given half the chance.

"Sam, can you personally run this down to Engineering, hand it to Lieutenant Torres and tell her that I would appreciate it if she could give me her opinion on the contents, I'll expect a report within the hour." I wave a padd at her and Wildman takes it with a smile and enters the turbo-lift.

"There you go Tom, that should buy you an hour or so of silence, don't say I don't do anything for you." I attempt a friendly smile to him and hope that it will prove enough distraction to Torres to leave the helmsman concentrating on his job instead of drowning in noisy mental abuse. He looks relieved enough and takes a deep breath, steeling himself ready for the next onslaught in the coming hours.

No one has attempted to explain Kathryn's absence and I don't want to enquire and make myself look stupid but it's certainly playing on my brain in a way I don't like. I feel like I lost a limb somewhere but at the same time, I feel a relief in not having to work so hard to focus my attention.

If Kathryn were here by my side, I probably would have lasted roughly three quarters of an hour before she would have slapped me upside the head in disgust from the thoughts that before were daily guilty pleasures of the mind and now make me look like a completely perverted and warped individual.

If Kathryn were here, I would be suffering. I would be intrigued by what I can discover rooting around the cupboards of her mind and at the same time terrified and worried that I was nothing more than an unwanted intruder, taking from her something that was never meant for me. It is an intrusion so deeply disturbing, to have someone able to access your entire thoughts, memories and being without you being able to control the outgoing information. I'm troubled she can do the same to me, it stands to reason that she would feel the same.

Kathryn has always been private and has always dripped out bits and pieces of herself when least expected, to have that control and defence of herself lowered, she probably doesn't want to be around me, she probably wants to be as far as she possibly can be from anyone able to know her as well as she knows herself.

More importantly though, if Kathryn were here by my side, she would know beyond the reasonable doubt we have maintained for so long, that…. I…. I….

NOPE!

NO!

STOP IT MAN!

Don't risk it, she could be listening…

Oh jeez, I'm getting paranoid as shit right now…

It's not worth the risk old man, don't do it this way.

I haven't sensed her or heard her in hours but I know in my better judgement, that I need to cease all thoughts non-professional, all thoughts of anything that isn't seeing Voyager through the latest drama.

Just focus and like Tuvok said, the rest will follow.

Whatever the fuck that means…

* * *

The hours pass slowly, all of us trying our best to maintain some sort of control and most of us failing miserably. Tom's admitted defeat and been relieved of duty to try and sleep, Wildman offering to take the helm for as long as she was able. Sam confessed that having Naomi roaming her mind wasn't too bad, aside from a few awkward questions over the breakfast table. Instead Sam has been enjoying Naomi's imagination running wild in her mind, she says it's like being inside a beautiful holo-program where all of Naomi's childlike fantasies of interesting creatures and wonderful sights are combining to allow her an almost nostalgic trip down memory lane of her own childhood.

Tuvok has been doing the work of at least twenty crewmen alone and after this madness has ensued I will be ensuring he takes a long break from duty for a week, give him time to recharge his batteries and refocus his own, no doubt now tired, mind. The quiet Vulcan is like a bulldozer, for a calm and collected being, he is relentless in his will.

For now he is taking command so that myself and Harry can go grab something for lunch, Neelix decided to put an all-day buffet spread out in the Mess-hall as some sort of morale boost and quick fix to a scattered crew who are coming and going briskly everywhere, not daring to stop too long in case the link proves a tempting distraction and they find themselves discovering secrets never meant for them.

Arriving at the Mess-hall was an experience in itself. Crew are milling around in varying states of distraction. Two officers stand toe to toe in silent battle over a plate with one brownie on it, both holding on to the plate with white knuckles, neither saying a word but giving each other the most intense stink eye I have ever seen.

Neelix is creeping about the room from person to person, almost overwhelmed to the point of exhaustion from all the gossip mining. A few crewmen sit looking forlorn, picking over the best of what they could find in the colourful and somewhat questionable offerings of the buffet, but what is tickling me the most right now, is Ayala.

He's stood in the centre of the room with the smuggest smile I've ever seen in my life while a number of female crew fawn around him. Apparently being the loving family man he is was such a revelation to the female members of the crew and is apparently so endearing to those who had delved into his mind briefly, that they now seem to conspicuously pushing each other slightly in order to be standing the closest to him. He looks as though all his birthdays have come at once. I know he'd never stray from his wife but he is thoroughly enjoying the attention, so thoroughly that he hasn't seemed to clock on to the fact that Mortimer Harren is also sidling up to him with puppy-dog eyes, something that is sure to prove interesting.

"Some guys get all the luck." Harry whines lowly next to me, maybe if he wasn't such a Debbie-downer he'd be where Ayala is standing now, which is now alarmingly close to Harren's somewhat tactile approach to befriend him. Apparently Harren had enough time to root around in Mike's head to discover that after a few Blood-wines, gender is not an issue for Mike. Harren's now managed to slip an arm around Ayala and is whispering something in his ear that is causing Ayala enough alarm to make his eyes bulge.

Ayala is a good man, a great man in fact. Someone who I am proud to call a friend and I know more than anything he just wants to get home to his sons and back to some sort of normality where he is an active part in their growing up. Being out here has been tough on him but he's strong, stronger than most and I know he'll weather any storm with me, I just not sure I can forfeit the amusement of seeing Harren practically draped across him, to go and wingman him out of the situation.

"Come on Harry, chin up and what not, there's plenty of time to mope later, now you need to move your ass if you want to find anything half edible on that table before Chell eats the lot." I attempt to give him an encouraging pat on the back but in my oafishness, it comes off as more of a hard slap, nearly flooring him before he straightens out and heads for the long table set out of food.

"Ahhh Chakotay, how are you today?" Neelix has appeared out of nowhere, in his annoyingly frequent way, and is concentrating his gaze on me pointedly.

"Fine thank you Neelix, yourself?" What a lie, you're miserable you twat. You've never been more miserable. This is torture.

"Oh yes, wonderful! I'm wonderful Mr Chakotay, I couldn't be more so I think, such exciting times!" He looks high from all the gossip he's collected from the minds of the many. I have no doubt that the real reason he decided to throw a buffet was less to do with morale and more to do with herding as many crew together as he could in a gossip-reaping mission. He smiles brightly before zeroing in on my eyes with a visible concentration. He's trying to read me.

"Sorry Neelix, I don't think you have this key to this castle." Thank Gods. I don't need my business around the ship any more than it is. And I certainly don't need a curious Talaxian rooting around my thoughts and memories.

"Really Commander? I have to admit I'm slightly hurt." His face is remarkably dejected.

"Hurt Neelix?" Hasn't he got enough minds to be poking around in?

"I thought we had a good relationship Commander, I consider you one of my closest friends." Ah shit…

"I wouldn't be offended Neelix, I don't seem to have a link to anyone." I lie again. Brazenly. Thankfully only the Doctor, Tom, Kathryn and myself know I have a link active with the Captain. It's not something I want to advertise, I don't need the crew knocking down my doors to get at what gossip they can about the Captain.

"Oh well in that case you're missing out Commander, I can't say I've ever had as much fun!" He beams broadly and shuffles off to a group of silent but obviously mentally active crewmen, some of them laughing over seemingly nothing, a joke shared between brain matter. This really is a strange situation.

The ship has never been so quiet, with people looking into each other's minds and others losing theirs, it's starting to worry me that a situation worse than minor annoyance will arise from this, Gods forbid it does, it would make the Delphi look like a pleasure cruise compared to the hell that could be raised here.

With all the arguing and gossip that already exists, this could be the fireworks that ignite the atmosphere into blazing ruins, this could be too much for an already exhausted crew.

This could be too much for me.

Because all I can think about, all that is screaming silently for attention in the echoing chambers of my mind, is Kathryn. It wants to overpower every thought that isn't her and I don't know that I can control it and quite frankly, I'm scared by it.

Sure, she enters my thoughts already on a daily basis, but this is ridiculous.

As all forbidden things of this existence, the more I try to not think about her, the more I do. All I have to do is survive the next few days without thinking about her and all will be well but I don't seem to be able to survive hourly currently without doing so and it's becoming dangerous.

We have maintained for so long a professional respect that _had_ to outweigh the personal because things become so complicated, just like New Earth, when we do allow the personal side of the relationship to flourish. We can maintain a friendship based on gentle teasing, laughter and support, but we always have a river running through it, churning with unresolved sexual tension and unspoken emotions that will drown us both.

Not now, not after so many years of trying to prove to each other silently that we don't care about each other beyond the professional parameters Kathryn so thoughtfully set between us, so much time and effort spent trying to pretend that we can live without one another…. This can't be when it all finally becomes undone and can't be undone at the same time.

This link could be the end of us…

Before we ever began….

Harry returns from gathering food, piled high on his plate and teetering somewhat precariously close to collapsing off the side and all over his uniform. I mentally thank the spirits for the distraction from Kathryn and look at his plate of food, I swear the pasta is writhing on it…

"Aren't you getting something to eat yourself Chakotay?" He asks before taking a large bite of sandwich and munching enthusiastically.

I wonder briefly if Kathryn has remembered to eat and then realise that it's all hopeless, I can't do it. I just can't not think about her.

"I'm not brave enough, I swear I just saw a sandwich jump off the table and run out the door. Enjoy your lunch Harry." I smile and leave him looking alarmed, frozen in mid-chew and looking at his sandwich suspiciously.

Deciding that I can't stand there and play the stoic Commander while my brain falls apart from the core, I make a hasty exit. Getting back to my duties should be enough to distract me.

Walking out the door and down the corridor, I start to make my way towards the turbo-lift and back to the Bridge, far from the maddening crowd. Just as I go to step into the lift I feel a sensation that can only be described as like walking into an electrocuted wall. My entire body is instantly humming with energy, I feel my pupils begin to dilate and a twitch pull at the muscles of my face, I've never felt more awake in my life.

Dammit Kathryn, I know you're around here you over-caffeinated bastard.

How much fucking coffee can one woman drink?! Dear Gods, she must be higher than a mother-fucker right now because I'm buzzing like a bitch right now.

And if I'm feeling it, she's here.

Somewhere.

Kathryn, I swear to the spirits you are quitting coffee, at least for the next few days, how on Earth can you function like this woman?

" _Quite easily, with practise. You'll get used to it, besides I need it."_

Her presence and reply is sudden in my mind, enough to startle me. She _IS_ here somewhere!

I find myself looking around suspiciously, trying to decide where she could be hiding.

Kathryn, you could never need to be this buzzed, unless you're planning to use your blood for rocket fuel, please try and limit the caffeine intake…

" _Apologies Commander, it's been a long day."_

For the briefest of moments, I expect her to come striding around the corner in the confident way she usually does, but she remains hidden at what she feels must be a safe distance to keep me, for whatever reason. Choosing to keep my own distance, lest my thoughts clue her into things I would rather keep from her, I step in to the turbo-lift. Just as the doors close, I feel the slow drain of the caffeine high begin to leave, the whisper of Kathryn's thoughts and the ghost of her emotions.

" _I can't do this."_

Nor can I.


	6. The Warning Chapter 6

Author's notes for anyone who's made it this far (well done you!): Again, anything in italics at length is Kathryn's voice in Chakotay's head via the link. Also, another loooooooong chapter for which I also apologise.

Disclaimer: Not mine, never were, never will be. Please don't sue me because I'm seriously poor to the point I'd have to pay you in jammy dodgers and good intentions. Go watch the show and enjoy it and be grateful to the powers that be that are indeed Voyager's keepers.

* * *

"I'll kill him." B'Elanna's voice knifes through the air from the comm system like a flying dart. Tom, as harassed as he is, has fled to the sanctuary of sickbay under the pretence that he's needed by the Doctor to help with the influx of suffering crew besieging him, really he's going somewhere safe away from Torres and intelligently, somewhere close to medical help should he need it. I can't say I blame him but B'Elanna sounds exhausted and is no doubt suffering in her pregnant state.

"You need to calm down, at least for the baby's sake, think of your blood pressure." I implore into the air of my quarters. I had been attempting to sleep after a stressful day, but Torres had interrupted when she realised Tom had done a runner from her nagging.

"I'm trying Chakotay but I swear to Kahless, the man is useless." A frustrated B'Elanna is not the B'Elanna you want to be around and definitely not the one you want to be arguing with, but someone has to stick up for Paris I suppose.

"Not that useless, he managed to knock you up pretty good." I hope humour will defuse her slightly.

"And it's the only time he will! The man's a monk from now on." The comm then hisses static and cuts out abruptly. Bitch hung up on me.

Throwing my comm-badge as far away from me as possible, I sit up in the bed and rub my eyes. I have no patience for this shit. My shoulder is still aching in a way that's not overly painful but annoying as hell.

I'm tired.

I'm cranky.

And I'm fucking horny.

Out of nowhere about twenty minutes ago, I suddenly became hornier than a toad in heat, fuck knows what's going on, but my brain feels like it's blazing and it looks as though the sonic shower is in for another night of use, otherwise Kathryn is going to experience her very own rude awakening.

Very rude awakening.

The kind that needs a warning beforehand.

The day had faded into night in a daze, as hard as I tried to concentrate on my duties, the more distracted I became with the absence of Kathryn and the ghostly imprints she has already left on my mind. It's like I've lived a whole other life and only have flashing memories of what happened but with the distance Kathryn has put between us in the last few days, to get anything tangible, to find any meaning in what little I have discovered about Kathryn in this link, is almost impossible as the link remains as distant as she and instead I am left with only whispers I can't quite make out.

Everyone was distracted today and I swear Tuvok is literally running the ship single-handed at the moment while Seven smugly strides around the ship as if it was another casual Tuesday. She had the nerve to submit a report saying she finds the Titson's upgrades inefficient and lacking.

Having spent more than enough time pouring off the specs myself in an effort to distract myself, and knowing Kathryn has also fully studied them at length after yesterday's recital that kept me awake, I can't see any issues with them whatsoever. They work as they should, they do want they're intended to so what the hell Seven's problem is, I don't know, perhaps the overwhelming need to out-do all is her distraction from the reappearance of a nostalgic hive like experience in her mind. It must be unsettling to have it again but she should also be more than able to adapt to it. Perhaps she is just an arrogant bitch after all but it annoyed the hell out of me that she questions so much of what the Captain and First Officer decides on.

Some crew are finding the link is already fading for them, that they no longer can connect to those who were so close only hours ago and are starting to come out of their distraction ready to fight the Borg, some are so deeply immersed in the new world in their heads that I don't see how they won't be effected long-term.

With the crazy gene's already rattling around me, I worry that my fate could be so intertwined with the outcoming of the link, that I'm destined to lose my mind to someone who never knew and things will change not for the better.

Another pang of tingling heat sweeps through me and I feel my muscles tighten and contract ready for something I'm not sure of, something like when I would prepare for a fight, I feel like a coiled spring.

I'm too old for this.

I'm too tired for this.

And I'm still no closer to losing my erection.

I feel like a fever has overtaken me and the only thing that can cure it is the one thing that could lead to my demise.

I can never have what it is that I want. And this makes things only harder, so to speak…

The forbidden fantasy….

Hauling myself wearily to my feet and dragging them heavily towards the head, the door chime suddenly warbles into life and I'm caught somewhat off guard.

Normally I would yell "Come in" without hesitation, but it's 0100hrs, I'm in nothing but my boxer shorts and have a boner you could hang your shopping off of, how the hell can I answer the door like this?

Panicking and arguing with myself about whether to open the door and whether answering it with a boner in full sight is something that will lead to being confined to the brig I'm equally panicked when I hear the unmistakable sound of someone using my door code to enter my quarters manually.

Shit, shit, shit….

Panic time, someone's coming to murder me, they've lost their mind in this link madness and decided it's time I pay for my sins….

Shit, shit, shit…

I'm going to die with a boner…

Oh Gods….

But then the panic turns to something else.

To something…

Not awful….

Not fearful or malevolent….

To something….

More…

Oh my….

As the realisation of what I'm feeling sinks in, I have little time to react as Kathryn strides confidently into my bedroom in her dressing gown, lands a flat palm against my chest, shoves me forcefully into the wall of my sleeping area and collides her lips against mine with the force of a million supernovas.

Well hello Captain…

The flood of emotions that follows the initial collision is something I could never have prepared myself for.

Between the overwhelming joy and relief, is everything that has been lingering between myself and Kathryn for all these years, every moment that blurred the lines she set between us, every time that a hand lingered too long or a gaze held for longer than it ever should have, every coded conversation hiding the words we could never actually speak, between the laughter and the sorrow that we each delivered in equal measure, for every time I wanted her and remained so far away, it is all here and it is all blinding in its clarity.

I know that on New Earth, had Tuvok, the ultimate cock-blocker of all time, not returned to "save us" from our haven from the chaos, things would have been very different and instead Kathryn left part of herself behind there, the part that wanted to be with me but could not in her role as Captain.

I know that had Q not interrupted us that day in her Ready Room when she had reached for me in my jealousy, she would have crossed the line so easily but chose to remain distant to all, including the omnipotent, because she couldn't have what she really wanted without consequences she feared more than the happiness she feared just slightly less.

I know that Michael, the holo-twat, was a replacement me in disguise and how guilty she felt at her actions. How she crossed her own lines by the final admission to herself that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't escape the feelings that lingered for me.

I know the jealousy that flared in her with every one of my dalliances with what she apparently considers space-sluts. I know how she tried to fool herself into thinking that it was jealousy for the freedom I was showing but in reality, it was because she so wanted to be the one I was with instead of random meaningless distractions to what could have been real happiness between us.

I feel every emotion known to the universe in a few seconds, I feel every moment that has passed between us from both our perspectives, I know the fear, the worry, the anxiety and pressure, the highs and lows, the longing and the loneliness, the threat of happiness and easy to surrender to misery that has been the relationship between us.

More importantly, I know that Kathryn does indeed taste of coffee and something resembling cinnamon buns and that her kiss can leave you weak in the knees.

For a few precious seconds that stretched to more of an infinity, we stand, arms and hands fighting to be the first to claim the undiscovered territory of each other, both reaching for each other as though we had never felt the touch of skin before. I can feel my heart beating clear out of my chest and the warmth of her being against me and hands tangle into hair and delicious skin and lips dance as though this was the moment they were made for.

It is then that I feel the misery inducing loss of pressure in her lips as she slowly pulls back and in complete silence, I look at her with more clarity than I've ever known. Her eyes are blazing, her normally pale skin is gently flushed with pink at the cheeks and the look of shock on her face at her own actions is quickly becoming alarming.

"It's good to see you too Kathryn." I look into her plunge pool eyes and wait for her to say something, anything, because she has been utterly silent this entire time and it looks as though she's only just realised what she's done.

Oh Gods…

"It isn't that I'm not pleased to see you Kathryn, but breaking into my quarters to sexually harass me in the middle of the night isn't something I was expecting." Maybe humour can defuse this, maybe she's given herself shock, maybe she broke into the wrong quarters…

I can't even read her thoughts right now because my own are so blaring in their nature, so loudly rejoicing and yet still fending off dooming worry.

Kathryn is looking at me light a deer in the headlights, as though she just woke up from a sleep walking episode to find herself here, in this moment, across the borders she would never before stray beyond.

Say something.

Say anything.

Is this regret?

Does she regret this?

Of course she does, this Kathryn Janeway, self-saboteur extraordinaire, this is Captain Janeway the lonely.

Why can't I hear you?

Where are you Kathryn?

"Tuvok and Harry have familiarised themselves with the new upgrades and are confident that the ship is prepared for the Borg attack." Until this moment she had been standing with her palm still flat against my chest, now she withdraws it and fusses with her hair as she speaks.

Are you fucking serious right now?

That's what you're going to say right now….

This fucking woman…

"Kathryn, you're stalling."

"I am and it was worth a try." She admits without missing a beat. I sigh and she moves backwards slightly away from me, one hand going to the hip as with all moments of stress, the other scratching at her brow with anxiety ridden enthusiasm. I keep myself standing somewhat shell-shocked by the wall, the want to touch her is so strong and I don't know that I can keep myself from doing so.

I can't read her through the link beyond the same panicked overload that I am already feeling myself. She's shutting me out on purpose, I know she is, I know this woman…

Now will begin the back peddling, the denial and cover-up of any admission of what just happened, of what she just initiated. This will not have happened as far as she is concerned, it's easier for her to live with ignoring these moments between us than it is to admit and confront her feelings… our feelings… us…

"Please don't pretend that didn't happen Kathryn, is it really that difficult to have this conversation?" I ask. We need to have this conversation. This needs to happen.

"Yes, because having this conversation means acknowledging something we've been skirting around successfully for nearly seven years." Her words have gathered pace as she talks and she ends the sentence by flinging her hands upwards in the air in a defeated move.

"It wasn't successful Kathryn otherwise we wouldn't be here now."

"We can be not here right now, we can just walk out the door and pretend it never happened." She smiles hopefully.

"Not this time Kathryn, you've made quite the lasting impression." Dear Gods has she, I'm pretty sure she just ruined me for life, how can I top that? My knees are still trembling. And that was just from one kiss!

"I don't suppose there's any chance you'd believe you're having some sort of delayed hallucination from your head injury." She pleads.

"Injuries" I correct, she hit me waaaaaay more than once and I'm not letting her forget it "and no, it can't be a hallucination because you're still dressed."

"Hell."

"You could strip and make it authentic, it might work then."

"I could demote you right now and kick you out the airlock Chakotay, we can't always have what we want." She huffs loudly.

"Tell me about it."

"I'll be frank with you Chakotay, I don't know what I was thinking or why… _that…_ just happened, I'm not entirely sure we can rule out the possibility my coffee was drugged today."

"Any ideas which cup, could it have been the fifth or the sixth?" Or seventeenth judging by that caffeine high I experienced earlier, she's probably been necking cups all day.

"It could have been any of them."

"Who would poison you Kathryn?" She's pacing around in a small circle now and pulling a loose thread on her dressing gown absentmindedly.

"Right now? Probably half the crew for getting them into another mess, remember the Delphi, it could have already started here and we haven't even realised!"

"Paranoid much?"

"Speak for yourself, you obviously pay no attention to your own thoughts, I felt the terror when I first walked in here." She's right, I did initially think someone was coming to murder me…

"Kathryn, you didn't do this to us, you were trying to prevent it if anything, your crew doesn't want to kill you, trust me." Please trust me. I thought we already had trust… Trust that trust… let me in Kathryn, why won't you let me in?

"It could have been the replicator." Sherlock Holmes must be shitting a brick right now with her deduction skills, I mean talk about a massive jump in logic… Dear Gods woman…

"And just why exactly is the replicator trying to poison you?" I attempt to play along with her crazy train.

"You know me and the replicator have never seen eye to eye."

"You've never seen eye to eye with anything or anyone Kathryn, you're too short." She pauses her pacing long enough to playfully hit me in the upper shoulder.

"First sexual harassment, now physical assault, charming." I mock. She laughs gently and stops pacing all together.

 _I'm scared._

There you are… I know…

She lingers there in the link, like a feather unsure if it's still in the air or gently landing on uneven ground.

"I'm sorry, it's been a long day, well a long week, hell a long few years… This link thing… it's breaking me a little bit... I wasn't prepared…" Her words stumble as her thoughts tumble and turn in her mind on a wind that blows through my own.

"Kathryn, I don't know what you want any more than I know how to deal with this situation but there's a reason why we're here right now and why that just happened and I hope this isn't regret and this isn't just because you're coffee-high and link crazy..." If she just kissed me just because this damned link has sent her nutso, I'm gonna be pissed…

"It's not that… it's… you're dangerous." Kathryn admits as she takes a seat at the end of my unmade bed.

"Dangerous?" What now?

She nods.

"Because of the Marquis?"

"No, not that, although I can only imagine my mother's face if I bring a Marquis home for dinner, it goes beyond that Chakotay, I can't trust myself around you." This is more than she's ever been able to say and I'm not sure I can deal with the honesty and truths of this conversation.

"In what way?" I ask, hoping it's not that she doesn't trust me. I couldn't handle that…

"Chakotay, the last time we spent any length of time in each other's company was stranded on New Earth, that damned planet of the apes, only instead of Charlton Heston we had a weather predicting monkey! I completely lost the plot down there, I didn't know that person." She shakes her head.

"Who the fuck is Charlton Heston?" I ask.

"Really? That's your main concern right now?" She laughs and it's somewhat a relief. I'd rather that than tears…

"Apologies."

"Ask Mr Paris, he'll be more than happy to fill you in." She takes a deep breath and continues "the point is, back there where it was just the two of us, things became…"

"Awkward?" I offer. "Infuriating? Embarrassing?"

"Difficult."

"A little more sexual tension than you were prepared for?"

"Around you Chakotay, I didn't know what a storm was, I seriously attempted to communicate with a primate and was excited about freaking tomatoes and instead of being the intelligent and strong-willed person I think I am, I became a damsel in distress snivelling under a table for far longer than was really necessary. I'm the Captain of a God-damned Star ship for goodness sake, I'm not… that… whatever that was… " She trails off and shakes her head in disbelief that she's actually for once saying these words that have remained unsaid for so long.

"That was you being Kathryn." It was, she has never been more herself than she was there. I miss Kathryn, the Kathryn that the Captain supresses.

"Well Kathryn can fuck off because I'm not prepared to be that." Her tone is enough to make me believe her. Having had enough insight into her mind I know she's not kidding.

"Has anyone ever told you you're sexy as hell when you use profanity?" I can't help myself, angry Kathryn is totally my favourite turn on about her…. I'm a sick man.

"Fuck off Chakotay."

"I quite like Kathryn as it happens, I think you would too should you choose to stop being a stubborn mule and let yourself live. She makes me laugh, she flirty as all hell, she's got one of the dirtiest sense of humour I've ever encountered and can drink a sailor into the deck, she's far more intelligent and strong willed than I'll ever be and she's one of the most beautiful women I have ever had the honour of knowing. A lot of people like Kathryn, you should too." I take a seat next to her, satisfied that it's safe to do so now, before I was still riled up to a point that I was unsure if I would be able to keep my hands off of her should I dare to be near her personal space.

"You like your women docile?" She snorts.

"I like you. For you. I like you Kathryn, Fuck it, I love you-..." Oh no. "And a lot of that comes from the time we spent together on that planet, so don't be so quick to distance yourself from the best of you. Captain Janeway will smother any and all happiness if you continue to let her, be Kathryn instead and live a little." She's staring at me open mouthed, I wonder if I've offended her, then my brain catches up to the verbal bomb that just fell out of my mouth.

Oh fuck.

"You didn't just say that." Kathryn looks at me in disbelief.

"I did." I admit. Wait… What? Why the hell am I doing this? What the hell am I saying?

"You did." She gently agrees sadly.

"Yep." We both nod slowly.

Well old man, you've gone and fucked it now.

Commence Escape Plan Alpha, to the airlock, quickly now.

"You… you lo-…" she seems unable to finish her question, unable to repeat the word love just in case she spontaneously combusts into embarrassed flames.

I nod anyway, knowing the question and knowing the answer far more bluntly than I ever have before. Knowing full well that the link has just sparked in intensity as she searches my mind for confirmation. Satisfied she's found the truth buried in my brain, she nods and withdraws from the link, closing herself off once more.

"Right." She nods slowly once more and then a frantic look of terror overtakes her eyes. "Well I have to go… somewhere… that… isn't here… uhhh… As you were Commander."

Seeing as my "As you were" state was in a massive state of arousal over her, as ever, I think it will be hard, excuse the pun, to do so. Before any desperate pleas to stay can fall out of my mouth, she is gone, carried out of the room on quick steps and head-scratching confusion.

And I've never felt such misery and joy in all my life.

* * *

None too surprisingly sleep took what seemed an age to come to me.

It refused to grant me refuge from the deluge of Kathryn sloshing around my brain.

Some sort of punishment for where we found ourselves, on the other side of the forbidden line.

Why now?

Why not when we weren't connected mentally?

Maybe it was the needed catalyst for us but it just seems all so wrong.

I've ruined my life.

And hers.

The link has diminished since Kathryn's visit, as hard as I concentrate she remains out of reach and out of my mind and it's making me actually feel out of my mind. As though nothing has actually occurred and at some point, I'm going to snap awake, drugged to the eyeballs in Sickbay and it was all a hallucination from my concussion days ago. If it wasn't for the gentle ache of my arm and wrist from our encounter with the Titson, I would think it was entirely not real.

Currently, without Kathryn actively in my mind I'm left with her ghosts to add extra torture to the day.

For as much as she holds back the majority of her thoughts when the link is distinguishable and strong between us, there are the flashes of disjointed memories that aren't mine that she has left me to puzzle over.

I have a vivid image of watching lightening split a tree in a cornfield, the feeling of relief and gratitude that I wasn't in the tree at the time is so real that it could have happened to me if I didn't know that this was Kathryn's life, not mine.

There are fleeting images of swimming in a quarry, of playing tennis on a humid day, of dragging unwilling feet through the mud in a thunderstorm of sorrow and defeat, of sitting under a desk around the feet of someone I am desperate to make proud, of staring at a ceiling from the solace of a bed for days on end, of watching a golden dog chase a stick in a green park, so many images that I feel and know but are not mine.

The worst of them though, the one that has lodged in my mind painfully, is of having my face pressed heavily into frozen ground, of bitter tears freezing against my cheek as utter hopelessness possesses me, of an agony so overwhelming and choking that I don't want to take another breath in case it makes the ordeal last longer. I can faintly see the steam and smoke rising from beside an ice cap, the gradual sinking of metal beneath the cold water.  
I know this is Kathryn and this is Kathryn's memory of her father and fiancé's deaths. Of the day she was unable to save those she loved. And it makes her unwillingness to let me drop to my death on the bridge days ago that much more understandable.

These added visions are not helping the situation any right now and seem far more present now than when the link was actually active. I've been trying my hardest to not cross the line and snoop in her mind when the opportunity has presented itself but it's been hard to resist the temptation and what she has drip fed in the way of thoughts and memories has made it all the more tempting but I respect the privacy she naturally craves, the same I crave for myself and I know the violation of someone taking something never meant for them.

Thoughts are the most personal thing a being can possess, when that privacy has been taken away it takes away the wall that separates you from the rest of the world and not everyone wants that. I certainly don't.

So for a while the ghosts rattle around my head, along with my own worries and fear.

I have no idea where this is all going and that's the most terrifying thing, because things will definitely be different between me and Kathryn now and it's not going to be in a way I'm going to like judging by her reaction to one kiss. That she initiated.

For a while that's enough comfort, that it was Kathryn that kissed me but the memories make it hard to see anything but black.

For hours, I tortured myself into anxiety ridden sweats until I eventually passed out from collective exhaustion and the inability to fight the temptation to give in anymore.

And my dreams offered little in the way of sanctuary.

Once more the tree and the bird returned to haunt me in the fleeting way that dreams do. I watched as the sky was scorched and the bird once more flew its nest to safety, only this time, it didn't end there. The bird returned. Still smudged with ash and charred with burning, the nest no longer on its wingspan, the bird probably left it somewhere safe to return here but why? I watch as the bird circles the burning skies once more and the tree finally crumbles into cinder and ash in a large glowing pile before me.

Then I hear it, the single, unified voice of the dead.

"Resistance is futile."

That chill that runs the length of my spine is as real as the waking world, shocking me in what had been the singeing heat. The despair that floods me is as real as the despair of Kathryn. The burning of the flames now changing to a growing white light between myself and the searing sky, I raise my hand to shield my eyes as the red bird flies high above between myself and the light.

"Resistance is futile."

The bird squawks and sounds a shrill cry of defiance. Flexing its wingspan and reaching the feathers as far as they could plume.

The light grows in intensity and as instantly as I become blinded in a chorus of squawks, screams and light, a real-world noise tears me painfully from the dream world into a waking world I don't want to be in.

A red-alert sounds, as does the summons to battle stations.

The next battle has begun.


	7. The Warning Chapter 7

Author's notes: Still here? Give yourself a pat on the back because I've not made it easy for you at all and for that I'm sorry. Italics for Kathryn's voice in Chakotay's head via the link.

Disclaimer: Not mine, never were, never will be. Please don't sue me because I'm seriously poor to the point I'd have to pay you in jammy dodgers and good intentions. Go watch the show and enjoy it and be grateful to the powers that be that are indeed Voyager's keepers.

* * *

Voyager shakes violently and resembles a crack of thunder, rolls through her plating as each blast attempts to be the one that will disable the ship into floating debris.

Stumbling out of the turbo-lift onto the bridge, I can see I'm one of the last to make it here. Tom is at the helm frantically attempting to outmanoeuvre the looming Borg cube that occupies most the of the view-screen, Harry is tapping away in a visible sweat at his console and Tuvok is tapping away at two screens simultaneously at his post.

Kathryn is almost draped across the Command console between our seats, tapping rhythmically and trying not to fall to the deck.

"Transporters offline!" Harry barks from next to me as I pass by towards my seat. "I don't understand, I thought the shielding was ready! Why are we taking damage?" Harry's frantic cry reaches across the bridge as I collide into my seat and start tapping at the console between myself and Kathryn.

"Seven modified the power intake to the shields to compensate for the new weapons." Tuvok's calm is still present.

"On who's authority? The Titson had made the necessary adjustments!" Kathryn looks at Tuvok with a panic that I can feel just as instantly, the link is flaring in intensity with each boom that rocks Voyager and I can feel an anger and frustration that is settling with Kathryn.

"On her own it would seem, I was not aware of it but the logs show modifications using her security codes." Tuvok pauses as another blast bites into the ship "The shielding is still charging, I estimate 3 minutes until it is at maximum power."

 _Fucking Seven! The sheer arrogance!_

Oh dear… Talk about faux-pas, Kathryn is boiling with rage.

 _I swear, next planet, she's on it! I don't care if it has breathable atmosphere, screw it, I'm stranding her on the next asteroid._

The asteroid's probably safer than staying around Kathryn because her thoughts right now are a swell of raging anger.

"Are the weapons online at least?" Kathryn growls from next me as another blast shakes Voyager forcefully.

"Regular shields down to fifteen percent."

"Weapons online, we have a firing frequency."

"Fire!" Kathryn grips the seat rest with white knuckles.

 _This better work. Otherwise we're screwed._

I look at Kathryn and try to concentrate some calm in her direction but the fear is present enough to make the effort weak and I instead surrender to the worry myself.

Voyager now shakes with the force of the first use of the weaponry provided by the Titson. On the view-screen a large and long blue laser fires from offscreen and impacts the cube with an explosive and rattling intensity.

"Direct hit!"

"Resistance is futile." The Hive bursts into life in a static filled boom throughout the ship.

"Rotating frequencies!" Harry yells before another blue laser strikes force with a crushing blow to the upper corner of the Cube. "Direct hit Captain, their shields are disabled."

Some hope.

 _Let it be enough._

Kathryn holds my gaze and then returns to the console between us. Another blast rocks Voyager and this time sparks fly from a shorted panel behind Tuvok, who rather calmly just steps to one side and continues tapping away.

"Hull breeches on the portside, deck six through to deck nine."

"The last hit disabled the standard shields, there's not enough power to charge the Titson shielding, weapons losing power also." Tuvok sounds rattles as Harry looks up from his console terrified.

"Well then it seems we have a game of chicken on our hands." Kathryn turns to Tom at the helm as she speaks. "Mr Paris, would you be so kind?"

"Aye Captain!" Tom smiles broadly and enthusiastically begins tapping the helm. He loves nothing more than to out-fly the universe. Something that was extremely apparent in the brief link we all shared, to fly is to breathe to Tom.

"Captain, another vessel has appeared on the short-range scanners, it's approaching on a heading -…" Before Harry has a chance to finish his sentence, a Titson vessel flashes into view like a rubber band snapping back across the universe.

 _Oh hell, what now?!_

A sense of annoyance and frustration from Kathryn settles into me once more and I make a final adjustment to the power going to the life support systems before looking towards the view-screen with a sickening anxiety.

Without so much as a hail, the blinding form of the Titson appear on the screen as they had done so days before. Again the chorus of voices float through the ship like a layered echo.

"Voyager we underestimated the drone you have aboard"

 _You don't say…_ Kathryn rolls her eyes as the sarcastic thought sweeps through both of our minds, even now I can't fight the smile that wants to enjoy her humour.

"Your vessel is failing. It will not carry you safe to the intended shore."

The phrasing of the Titson is somewhat pretentious and more than a little over-dramatic. It's like their speech is chosen by the one Titson among them that wanted to be a Bard more than he wanted to be a telepathic twat.

Next to me Kathryn smiles wryly at my thought and looks back towards the screen as another blast causing more sparks to burst into life across the bridge like raining fire. The command console blares a loud warning and I see that the power is beginning to fail to most of the major systems.

"Life support is failing, fires on decks three through nine and environmental controls are going offline." I shout and sigh loudly and look towards the blinding Titson.

"Transfer of your crew should begin immediately." The chorus swells as they calculate the impending doom, like a song swelling to a just out of reach crescendo.

"Our transporters are offline." Kathryn counters, frustrated and forlorn. Another blast shakes the bridge and more sparks fly, some plating falls to the deck from above us and exposed wires hiss with the threat of death, showering us with an even more impressive carpet of burning electricity.

"We will begin the transfer now, should you consent. Our own shields will be inactive during the transfer process." The pitch rises in the chorus and I swear I can almost hear music behind the voices of the many. Their own safety is risked to save ours.

"I consent." Having taking Kathryn's earlier criticism of invading personal space to heart obviously, to have the Titson offer an optional evacuation of this ship is unexpected. Even borderline-Gods can learn a lesson about manners in Kathryn Janeway's presence. There is a pause between her consent and the Titson's response as Kathryn stares the view-screen down pointedly. I can't read what she's thinking, what she seems to be silently debating but something is going on. I know it. I know her.

"Transfer will begin immediately of all non-essential crew, please stand by." The chorus swells once more, the melodic breath that seems to accompany every word pitches at harmonising tones. Kathryn nods to Harry who opens a ship wide comm.

"All hands, this is the Captain, prepare to evacuate to the Titson vessel."

The fact they're transferring the non-essential crew first is puzzling, why not all at once? Why can't I hear you Kathryn, what's really going on? Something else is happening here. The deck shudders under our feet and the sound of groaning metal shears the atmosphere with a sense of hurry.

"Captain, the warp core's losing stability, at this distance it'll take out both us and the Titson vessel." Harry doesn't bother to hide the fear in his voice. It's the same fear I feel. The combined force of both our vessel destructing will probably take half the sector with it.

Why couldn't Seven leave well enough alone? What the hell was she trying to do? Surely arrogance couldn't drive her to kill us all? If we had that shielding charged and ready to go we would have be fine, it would have been like a potato gun firing at a castle and the Borg cube would be space dust by now.

"Janeway to Engineering, B'Elanna can you secure the core?" The words tumbled from Kathryn's mouth with an urgency and vague hope the second she hit her comm-badge, she looks panicked towards the growing shower of sparks above us as she waits for a reply.

"Negative Captain, there's not enough time." Torres crackles amidst a hiss of static but the disappointment and frustration is evidently heavy in her voice.

"Prepare for transport B'Elanna, Janeway out." Janeway slaps her comm-badge and sits back in her command seat. I fix my gaze on her waiting for some sort of answer as to what's going on right now.

"The only life signs left on board is the Bridge Crew Captain." Harry yells over the top of another blast that leaves Voyager creaking with a pained groan.

How are you doing this Kathryn? How are the crew being transported like this, what are you doing? Kathryn?

The silence that is where she had been in mind before is achingly void but I continue to concentrate on her in a vain hope that answers will present themselves verbally or mentally.

After a few beats, she turns to look at me as a halo of sparks erupts from the console behind us.

 _I'm so sorry Chakotay._

For what?

For what Kathryn?

What are you doing?

The link once more buzzes into life through my brain and I can feel the apology run through me as deeply as she intends it to, but she's blocking out the reason for the apology, for what is going on. It's only as I hear the chorus of Titson in her mind as well as my mind that I realise. She's been communicating with them via the link this entire time. She's made a silent plan and she's not stopping.

 _We wasted so much time._

"Bridge crew prepare for transport." She holds my gaze as she speaks both out loud and mentally.

 _Harry_.

As she thinks his name, I watch him dissolve into white light and fade away from the bridge.

 _Ayala._

Mike slowly does the same, vanishing as though he had never been there at all.

 _Tuvok._

As she thinks his name, the Vulcan simultaneously raises his hand in the prosperity sign and nods as the light that has become him carries him away to the Titson. I know Tuvok and Kathryn have maintained a link between them also and that no doubt the part of her mind that was communicating to him is now one I cannot access without a link Tuvok myself. But even without access to his mind, I know full well that was a goodbye. He just said goodbye to Kathryn.

Why Kathryn?

Why goodbye, Kathryn?

Yet another blast but she does not waver in eye contact.

 _Tom._

The helmsman too fades from the bridge quietly and without a fuss. But Kathryn still doesn't answer me, instead she continues to hold my gaze quietly and with a sadness I can feel but not recognise the source, all I can see is the mouth of the waterfall from which this all churns from and it fills me with a dread I cannot verbalise.

 _I'm so sorry._

Don't be sorry Kathryn, don't do something to be sorry about… please.

She smiles at me in that crooked way only she can. Her eyes full of threatening tears and her mind swelling with an overwhelming love and warmth that I cannot describe.

 _Chakotay._

NO! KATHRYN!

The scream that is torn from my lips and my mind as I begin to vanish, begins on Voyager and ends on the bridge of the Titson ship where the transfer deposits me. The last thing I know as Voyager had vanished from my sight, was the overwhelming love of a woman named Kathryn.

* * *

Looking around, I see most of the senior team standing together as we are surrounded by a chorus of Titson linked by hands in a circle around every inch of the blinding white room. I can see but at the same time I cannot but I know what it is, where I am and what is going on.

And it is this that causes the scream to continue to howl from my lips as my form gathers its full presence in this new environment.

The Titson ship that now harbours the crew, is still now bringing its shielding online as it remains defenceless from the transfer of the crew.

And the reason Kathryn isn't here is because she has now manoeuvred Voyager between us and the Borg cube, drawing their fire and protecting the Titson vessel and her crew from the worst of the blasts.

In the centre of the room is a smaller circle of Titson, still linked at the hands but also linked via a series of wires to the only console in the entire room. From the console, a projected sphere shows the image of the cube firing on Voyager.

The chorus of voices is humming loudly, a series of whispers layered over one another speaking simultaneously of the damage the ship is taking, the damage Voyager is taking, the status of their systems, status of their link and amongst it all, a soothing echo of calm and reassurance specifically for the Voyager crew, all now re-linked and all worrying in bewilderment at our current situation.

B'Elanna and Tom hurry to my side as I sink to my knees, consumed by the chaos surrounding us and the horrifying realisation that Kathryn's self-punishment and desire to balance the scales of injustice, stretches to martyrdom.

The combination of the swirling voices and overwhelming emotions of it all is too much.

Please don't let her die, spirits please, I beg you, Kathryn can't die.

My mind pleads with the Titson but I receive no clear definitive answer from the Titson or from my mind. Just an overwhelming loneliness in the least lonely of situations. Even as B'Elanna lays a reassuring hand on my shoulder and Tom kneels down to me, I only feel the void left by Kathryn Janeway.

Dammit Kathryn, don't do this.

You can still make it to the ship, come on Kathryn, come on!

I search desperately for her, my mind seeing a packed room full of people, I'm pushing each person, each voice aside looking for the one that is hers. Tom, Tuvok, B'Elanna, Harry, Ayala, Wildman, Neelix, Naomi, Chell, all of them I shove aside looking for the one face that is hers, Nicoletti, Gilmore, Lessing, Seven I all but put her on her ass on the floor, I barge through the voices one by one eliminating each one that isn't Kathryn.

Where are you?

On and on I go until the room in my head is nearly empty. As I pull the last few aside, there is only one person and one voice left. She turns to face me slowly, her face set grimly in sadness and regret.

Why Kathryn? It didn't have to be this way, you don't have to die to save us.

 _You always think there will be more time, another day to deal with yesterday's worries._ Her voice is strong and wrapped in that smoky haze that is hers and hers alone.

The sphere on the Titson bridge shows multiple hull breeches and fires raging across the bulk of Voyagers failing frame, the ship remaining between us and the Borg Cube but advancing towards it at speed as the Titson roll their heads in unison and continue to whisper in their chorus. I know I'm still screaming, I'm vaguely aware of the sound but I'm so deafened by the various points of noise that I cannot distinguish it from the chorus of screams in the heads of the many crew looking terrified.

I can't watch it, I can't watch her die.

Returning to Kathryn in my head, I want to reach for her but I know my hands will remain empty, after all she's not really here. Her thoughts are chaotic and hard to hold on to, flying on a breeze that will carry her from me.

I see memories of us together, laughing on the bridge, arguing in the Sickbay, disagreeing in Astrometrics, conspiring in the Ready room, the kiss, the rose I gave her, the night we both got so drunk all we did was laugh ourselves silly, the anger at her methods during the Equinox fiasco, the kiss, the games of pool on the holodeck, the tomatoes of New Earth, the tears of the lost souls of our journey, the kiss, the betrayal of my ill-fated mutiny, the fear of the constant unfightable demons and monsters….

Please Kathryn, please…

She shakes her head sadly but smiles through the tears, moving forward to within inches of my imagined self.

There's the injustice of our being stranded, the first time we met as enemies, the first day we met as friends, the kiss, the fear of losing her to the Borg, the horror of seeing her as a drone, the relief at her safe return, the kiss, the dinners we shared and the laughter that was so easy between us despite her terrible cooking, the jokes in the worst of moments, the hands that lingered too long and the gazes that lingered even more, the hope of reconnecting with Earth, the accomplishment of the distance we travelled, the kiss, the deaths she nearly surrendered to on what seemed a near weekly basis, the darkness of the void of space that nearly claimed her sanity, the kiss…

The sphere on the bridge now shows Voyager has ejected the warp core and has reversed its thrusters now hurtling itself back towards the Titson vessel.

No Kathryn, don't do it, I know what you're going to do, don't do it Kathryn, don't do it Kathryn…

 _This should protect you from the worst of the blast. Don't let it be in vain._

No Kathryn, no, come on, come on!

My words echo both in my mind and out loud as my body can no longer contain the horror and pain of what Kathryn is attempting to do.

I know that the shielding of this vessel is so close to being online, just a few more seconds should do it, but the blasts that now shudder beneath my feet and the alarming chorus of chanting Titson tell me that this ship is close to destruction

Kathryn there's still time, please.

The night I told her of the warrior legend, the night I regretted the warrior legend, the smile that broke me into a million pieces as she held my hand, the kiss, the holo-sails into imagined waters, the terror of being stalked by a Hirogen through the broken corridors of Voyager, the mistakes of the worst of our decisions, the impatience to get home that showed when she was barely holding it together, the kiss, the cider we shared over a broken replicator, the jokes we made about the worst of the Doctor's performances, the reluctance to return to Voyager from New Earth, the kiss, the kiss… the kiss.

The Titson chorus warns of Voyagers weapons charging and their intended target as their voices combine to form the most angelic sounding harmony I have ever heard.

The kiss.

 _I love you too._

These are the last recognisable words of this existence, as I watched with a howling pain as Voyager fired on the warp core which had drifted on the force of the ejection towards the Borg cube and its detonation consumed the sphere of vision into blinding white light on the Titson bridge causing the chorus of voices reach a crescendo of unimaginable beauty and as abruptly, Kathryn is ripped from my mind with a sorrowful pull leaving her last words to echo into the darkness that is the void she leaves.

Screaming into the deck of the Titson bridge while Tom and B'Elanna exchange horrified glances, I realise that life will no longer have anything to offer me anymore.

And all meaning is lost.


	8. The Warning Chapter 8

Disclaimer: Not mine, never were, never will be. Please don't sue me because I'm seriously poor to the point I'd have to pay you in jammy dodgers and good intentions. Go watch the show and enjoy it and be grateful to the powers that be that are indeed Voyager's keepers.

* * *

At some point, I must have blacked out, because I'm on my back and I have no idea in hell how I got here.

"Well you're a dramatic one, aren't you?" The Doctor's face looms over mine with an annoyed grimace.

What now?

What the hell is going on?

There is no chorus in my head, there is no noise whatsoever apart from an annoying hum coming from the Doctor's lips. There are no chanting Titson, no screams of terror, no thoughts of worry or voices which do not belong to me. Just the Doctor humming.

The Doctor.

Wait, the Doctor?

But Voyager…

Kathryn…

"You passed out Commander on the Titson vessel, apparently the sight of exploding Borg is more than you can take." He huffs and waves a tricorder over me.

"Give the guy a break would ya? Jeez, we've apologised what more do you want Doc?" Tom Paris appears on the opposite side of the bed above me.

"Not to be forgotten about would be nice!" The Doctor slams shut his tricorder and flounces off in a huff.

"What the hell was that about and what the hell is going on?" I demand, attempting to sit upright. As I do, I notice I'm in sickbay. Voyager's sickbay. What the…

Tom puts a steadying hand on my shoulder and supports me as I sit up and the room spins into its rightful place around me.

"We forgot the Doctor." Tom puffs with the effort of helping me up and helps me swing my legs around. "When we abandoned ship, we left him behind." He makes an awkward face and smiles slightly.

"Tom, seriously what happened?" I'm not in the mood for patience right now. I wanna know what the fuck is going on and how I'm on Voyager and I want to know now.

"It would seem that the Titson shielding activated on both Voyager and the Titson Vessel before the Captain blew up the warp core, she destroyed the Cube but… well… lost a warp core."

"What?!"

"The Captain, she's fine, Voyager's fine, well to a point… The Captain's on the Bridge I think, last I saw her was talking to the Titson, they're going to help us make repairs and replace our warp core apparently, everyone's fine Chakotay, only you passed out like a little bitch." He laughs "It was a doozy too because you've been out of hooooours." If I had the energy I'd probably floor him but right now I need to find out if it's true, if Kathryn is okay. Pushing him aside, I get myself onto somewhat wibbly wobbly ground on two uncooperative legs and start to make my way to the exit like a determined drunk bear.

"Commander I haven't cleared you for duty yet!" The Doctor yells behind me, I ignore him and carry on my way. As the doors close behind me I hear the Doctor complain - "First forgotten, now ignored, I might as well be nothing more than a fancy alarm clock to you people." - To a less than bothered Paris.

This is all to convenient.

Slightly _too_ convenient if you ask me.

I know we've had quick fixes and in the past to dire situations but this is ridiculous.

Did I really scream and pass out in front of the entire crew over nothing?

I thought she was going to die!

How the fuck will I _ever_ live this down?!

It can't be real, it can't. I'm in shock and my brains compensating by showing me something reassuring. Must be. This can't be real. I saw the explosion, Kathryn disappeared from our link… This can't be real. It can't.

This is my mantra all the way through the damaged corridors and up in a noticeably slower turbo-lift all the way to the Bridge. A repeated belief that I'm now hallucinating.

The ship shows battle signs, the fallen plates and exposed wires and gel packs of Voyager's guts.

She really got the shielding online in time?

This cannot be real.

It's all just a little too perfect. More perfect than is possible.

As the lift doors open to show a someone battered bridge, Tuvok nods a greeting and Harry smiles broadly at me.

"The Captain sure knows a thing or two about timing huh?" Harry grins as he speaks, his cheeks red with the effort of doing so.

"Apparently so… is she…" The question trails off as he nods towards the Ready Room.

I start to cross the bridge and Tuvok steps forward from behind his console.

"Commander Chakotay, I wanted to speak with you." His tone is low and almost whispered, a covert message he doesn't want Harry or Ayala to hear as they busy themselves with clearing the worst of the Bridge debris. I nod to him and step aside to hear what it is he has to say.

"Commander, I wanted you to know, I am all too familiar with the Captain's self-destructive side, as are you and I would never intentionally let her sacrifice herself willingly. I have experienced more than one telepathic link with the Captain over the years and I have experienced the worst of her emotions, I have also experienced the best of them. I was confident that Captain Janeway would succeed with her plan and was unaware of the emotions involved. For that I apologise and I will ensure that I do not let you reach a misunderstanding in such a way again." He finishes by bowing slightly. And I have no idea what to reply with because I'm lost for words.

Tuvok. 'Ol Tuvok the softie…

This is crazy, and impossible… Tuvok's apologising… to me?

"I appreciate that Tuvok and perhaps it would be an idea that you could help me work on calming my mind somewhat… I hear I'm slightly over-dramatic." I smile at the Vulcan who raises an eyebrow in response.

"Just a touch Commander." He says with a nod and returns to his station.

Slightly annoyed with the unexpected detour to make sure Kathryn is actually alive, I take a breath and press the call button for entry to the Ready Room.

Seconds pass and I wonder if I'm going to stand here forever because she's not actually in there and none of this is real.

Just as I think of turning away less I embarrass myself further in this hallucination, the doors open with a husky "Come in!" and reveal Kathryn, sitting at a desk, coffee in hand amid a dusting of ash and broken circuitry.

"Feeling better Chakotay?" She asks, her eyes never moving from the padd in her hand.

I hear the doors close behind me by the time I've reached the desk and hauled Kathryn from her seat into my arms.

"Don't _ever_ do that again." I press my face into her hair and whisper into her ear as I feel her arms envelop me in a warm embrace.

"I'm sorry, you never like my daring plans and I didn't want you to talk me out of it as you so frequently do, it's like you don't want me to have any fun at all." She teases softly into my ear before pressing her face into chest.

"I just don't like your plan's when they involve you dying, seriously, never again because that was…I thought…"

"I know" She cuts me off. "I felt it too, the warp core blast kinda distracted me somewhat out of the link, I'm sorry to have just left you there like that."

"Well at least you didn't forget me like the Doctor." She laughs at this.

"Oh hell, is he still complaining about that?" she asks.

"Loudly." I reply. "Very loudly."

"The Titson have given us a temporary warp core, thing looks like a glow bug in an empty jar but apparently it's got enough power to keep us going till they can install a fully working one for us in the next few days." She hasn't made an effort to free herself of this embrace as she talks, if anything she seems content where she is. "Tuvok has arranged repairs, should be about two weeks till we're up and running again. The Titson are staying around to make sure."

"Well that's mighty helpful of them." I smile.

"I think they feel guilty for not foreseeing the ego of the Borg." She laughs dryly before continuing. "Speaking of which, our resident Borg is now our resident Mess hall assistant, at least she is for the next six weeks, see how she likes that!" I can't help but laugh at her, nearly wiped out by the woman but still able to find humour somewhere about it. "I may have also confiscated her rations for coffee but that's between you and me." She winks up at me and then reburies herself into the hug.

"I think Seven will learn a valuable lesson about arrogance and ego from this, I can't imagine the crew are thrilled about what she did." I murmur into her hair, hair that smells of smoke from the battle and flowers I know I'm going to love smelling for days to come.

"I'm not thrilled about what she did! I told the Titson if it was so important to get her to Earth then feel free to take her but oddly they declined the offer." Kathryn laughs again, the laugh I never thought I'd hear again. "Apparently it is us who must deliver the chosen one." She mocks.

"Well that is odd." I reply dryly "Imagine not wanting Seven around." The joke is received with a large smile from Kathryn and I can't help but feel this is almost too good to be true.

So much so that I pull myself reluctantly from the embrace to catch her lips in a kiss before she can protest just to check if this is reality.

The welcoming dance beneath my lips is reassuring and calming. Like plunging into a cool pool on a searing day.

There is a lingering link there between us still, enough to know she is enjoying the kiss very much herself, but it feels as distant as Earth does and I know soon it will dissipate into a silence I can only hope to fill with more memories and thoughts of a future I never imagined possible.

The relief that Kathryn is alive, is here in my arms and we're not all doomed quite as much as we were hours ago, is almost indescribable. It's not hard to see why I'd find this impossible and too convenient to be real but somehow it is and I don't want to question something that is so much better than the alternative.

Whether it's real, whether my mind has reacted to trauma with an impossible hallucination, I frankly don't care. I just care that I'm here with Kathryn.

Nothing else matters.

I don't want to question how and why because it could end the dream if it is one, part of me is resisting the urge to look for the image of the full moon, my usual hint that I'm lucid dreaming, but I don't want to, I don't want to risk this moment now being real and ripped from me so painfully.

I won't question the neat tidying of loose ends that seems too good to be true, I won't question the repairs and replacements the Titson will provide, I don't want to question this whole ordeal.

I just want this moment, here with Kathryn, to never end.

We have so many close calls, so many dramas that wrap up nicely and all's well that ends well and none of it seems possible, for how close to hell we skimmed in the name of exploration is ridiculous. There are hundreds of times this all could have ended at any given second and to dodge another bullet and be riding off into an alien nebula instead of sunset seems like a better idea than surrendering to the idea of a puppet master pulling our strings this way and that, making our lives his creation and his alone. I wanted to be an active participant, I want a say in how my life goes, I want to make some decisions.

And right now, all I know is Kathryn.

Being here, now, with her… the warmth of her, the warmth of the emotion and love that has settle into my being, it's beyond perfect. Holding the woman I love, I lose myself to her and to the moment and it's so satisfying that I won't know of anything else.

Not of the worry, the anxiety, the pain and frustration, the loneliness, the disappointment, none of the negative energy that has followed out footsteps for so long. I won't notice the plot holes, the breaks in continuity or impossibility of our survival, I won't even notice as Earth's moon glides past voyager bathing us in lunar light.

* * *

 _Author's notes: If you made it this far to the end, you deserve some sort of medal. I can't thank you enough for reading and I hope if it was terribly written, it at least gave you some good giggles occasionally. I'll take laughter any day of the week._

 _Love and Peace to you all._


End file.
